UFO: The High Ground
by MorbiusXX
Summary: This is my attempt at a reboot of one my favorite programs as a kid. I've given it an update via Star Trek time travel, nothing special there. It was the only way to me to bring it into our reality. Anyway hope you enjoy.
1. Chapter 1

January, 1948

"Tom you need to break off!" Mantell's wingman, Gordon Pollard's warning radio call should have been enough.

But this thing could house Mantell's entire P-51 flight of four. Mantell looked at his altimeter. He was pushing the Mustang to its limit as he guided it past 19,000 feet. But he had to see it. It, it looked like some kind of damned inverted spinning top, almost glass-like except for the spinning lights beneath. Mantell felt rather than heard an increasingly high pitched humming, not piercing but rising up and then back down on a regular schedule, like a sine wave. He also believed that his quarry, however strange, was having problems of its own. It was maneuvering erratically and smoke or perhaps a type of fuel vapor was pouring out of the spinning ship.

"Screw it Gord! I'm going in for a closer look. This is no Russian; those dumbasses can't even get their plumbing right." This last Mantell said beneath his O2 mask. His Mustang was running out of sky, the little baby's engine was making no more airspeed. Mantell was aware of an uncomfortable feeling in his body. Damnit he had to fart!

He realized he was gaining on this unidentified flying object. That meant that at 23,000 feet and climbing while his airspeed needle rolled backwards, that this thing was slowing. Mantell went to a lean setting on the Mustang's engine while realizing that his vision was tunneled. He shook his head, struggling against his O2 mask.

"Christ, those, those are people!" Mantell exclaimed under his mask and then keyed his radio. "There are people in this thing!"

The thing, well it appeared transparent in places. Major Mantell could make out figures. They looked like people viewed from a distance. This thing wasn't American and it sure as hell wasn't Russian. He was close. Mantell tried clearing his head. He realized that seeing and distinguishing people meant that he was too close! He felt the impact throughout his body. The Mustang was falling. Mantell realized that he had been suffering from a lack of oxygen. It was his last thought as the Mustang, more falling debris than airplane, hit 20,000 feet and exploded.

"Well that's it then, another passed over major!" Major Edward Straker declared as he slammed his briefcase on the squadron scheduler's desk. Straker was a tall man, muscular yet thinly proportioned with a head full of hair so blonde as to be almost white. His eyes, the eyes of a hunter, were a piercing blue.

Captain Howard Moscovitz shook his head while looking up at his friend, instructor and senior, all the while studying next week's flying schedule, a block of times in a spiral bound notebook. "It's not Robin Olds' Air Force anymore sir." Moscovitz saw Ed's grimace, but Lieutenant Colonel Baxter, the First Fighter Squadron's new commander expected decorum out of his people. Normally Moscovitz would call Straker, Ed, especially when Ed was giving him hell about banking the F-4 aircraft during final approach.

Moscovitz nodded at the briefcase. "I bet, knowing you that there is a resumé in there for the majors. By the way, if you aren't otherwise busy Lieutenant Turner needs to be signed off this Friday, you available?"

Straker chuckled despite just being told by Baxter that his Air Force career was over. "You don't miss a beat?" Straker took out a pack of Marlborough's from his pocket and lit one up. He peered out of a window into Virginia's hazy summer day. "Yeah, I'll push some commercial junk, sexy stews trying to seduce me while I make a fortune."

"You told Mary yet Major Straker?" Moscovitz asked.

"She thinks it's wonderful. Regular schedules and such, you know she's always hated the demands of the service." Straker chewed bitterly on the thought. True Mary had hated the Air Force but she knew what Straker was while they had been dating. She saw and knew that many of his ribbons came from clandestine operations in Vietnam and lately the Middle East.

Yet it was the Baxter's that were to be Straker's downfall, a military that had become the will of feckless politicians. Straker cared little for politics, just wishing that their leaders, whatever their persuasion, would stick to a course of action. Baxter belonged to the new breed of back-steppers, flippers and wishy-washy non-decision makers. Manage, but heavens forbid you implement a plan.

"Well, maybe it's time to go sir," Moscovitz remarked. "That damned peanut farmer…" The captain trailed off. It was the very same thought that Straker had just had. Moscovitz thought that some political party could make things different. Straker just wanted them to do their duty.

"Okay, put me down for Friday, wouldn't want any of our single guys to be put out." Straker chuckled all the while sitting on a mass of bitterness.

"Didn't figure for a cross country did you sir?" Lieutenant Chris Turner asked Straker over the F-4's intercom.

"It's a great way of life," Straker remarked, playing upon the Air Force's latest recruiting slogan. This mission would push the bounds of crew duty day, starting as it had at 0700 local in Langley. It was now 1600. A quick hit from a KC-135 refueling tanker then blasting back to Langley would put them on the ground just shy of their legal 12 hours.

"I got the tanker on radar sir, turn 2-4-0 and slow to 300 knots." Straker followed his weapons officer's instructions, knowing that Turner was talking to the 135's navigator. His mind was elsewhere. Angered over his inability to progress in rank he nonetheless was thinking more about Mary's pregnancy. Maybe he should have married sooner. He would need that airline job now after his upcoming separation. Straker was almost forty, jobless and soon to be a father.

"Call the turn," Straker muttered under his O2 mask. He had a visual ID on their tanker and knew the makings of a bad rendezvous. This had that potential.

"Slow to 270 and turn to final heading," Turner proclaimed. Straker breathed a mental sigh of relief. He pulled back the throttles to slow their aircraft. The compressor stall slewed the fighter violently.

"Run the God damned stall checklist Wizo!" Straker ordered. He considered their options. They were near Dayton, Wright-Pat was near to them. Straker watched as the EGT in the right engine, that engine's exhaust gas temperature climbed beyond normal.

"I've alerted the tanker they are calling center boss!" Turner informed Straker. A serious young man, one of many blacks coming to what had been a white only profession, Straker had thought his only shortcoming was the flip manner in which he approached things.

The EGT spiked, within seconds Straker heard a loud bang. The left engine rolled back. "There was an airfield in Wright-Pat's space, 30 miles south of the main field. Snap me a vector for that!" Straker ordered.

"How do ya remember that! Okay, okay, there it is, turn 3-5-5." Turner's voice was icily calm. Straker turned the ailing plane and after plunging below 15,000 feet he could see the airfield. Unmarked as such he assumed that it was an old feeder field, possibly a leftover World War II maintenance field. Right now it was their only hope, ejection being a dubious proposition.

Trading altitude for airspeed Straker guided the now dead plane toward his hoped for landing strip. The right engine was dead and hydraulics were on auxiliary. He smiled when he saw that at 9,000 feet they were effectively lined up to land. That was good as the aircraft started to shudder.

"We're going to make it sir!" Turner's exclamation was as much encouragement as it was bravado. Things looked good for a busted bird but their luck hadn't been great during the last few minutes.

The F-4, no great maneuvering bird under power was like a rock with both its engines dead. Straker breathed a sigh of relief when the jet went below 7,000 feet. Premature he thought as the Phantom slewed violently to the right and started rolling.

"Time to leave!" Straker made this last pronouncement as he pulled down the face curtain and pulled the ejection handles. He was vaguely aware of Turner's acknowledgement. Straker saw the Phantom below him, saw Turner's chair and then his chute. In what seemed like hours Straker was in free fall. He felt the chute deployment as a physical blow.

Straker's eyes cleared. He saw the flames from the air as the ground rushed up toward him. Had anyone been in that building he wondered. The F-4 had gone out a true Kamikaze, crashing into the airfield's only structure. Straker hit the ground and rolled. He saw men running toward him.

Pulling his releases the chute blew away. Straker tumbled over. "Who the hell are you?" The voice was from one of the men. Straker noted his pickled green uniform, the latest experiment in uniforms from the Air Force. Straker shrugged off his landing and identified himself. He watched the confusion of the men around him. Of course, a war plane had just landed on them and exploded.

Was that gun fire? Straker saw a man running from the ruins of the flaming building. The figure's long silver hair was accented by a one piece white uniform. His speed and the way he dealt with those in his path belonged to a younger person. He supposed it was a man given that he had knocked aside an armed soldier like a child knocking over blocks. Straker made out Turner's chute. His backseater was up and moving about. The man was running toward Turner. One of the soldiers took aim at the old man and Turner. Straker, despite this being a flight over US territory, was nonetheless armed. He drew a .45 from under his flight jacket and shot at the soldier. No one was killing a man under his command. Straker's bullet chipped away at part of what was left of the building. That was enough to cause the soldier to dive for cover.

"Everyone stand down!" The voice was commanding. The berserk man ran at Turner who tried to push him away. "Don't let him touch you!"

Too late the man had Turner's head in his hands. Straker watched as his Wizo screamed and fell to his knees. There was a gun shot. The white figure twitched but held onto Turner. There were two more shots finally causing the attacker to let go of Straker's back seat driver and collapse. Several soldiers rushed toward the fallen man. Turner much to Straker's horror turned and ran into the flames of the burning structure.

"Surround the lab!" Straker turned and leveled his pistol at the voice. "Get that man!"

"Henderson!" Straker recognized the man from a POW rescue mission that Henderson had orchestrated and Straker had commanded. He had never known Henderson's rank; just that he was some kind of spook. "What's going on here?"

"Who was your partner? What kind of knowledge does he have?" Henderson was a man that needed answers.

"My Weapons System Operator, why?" he answered. Henderson was visibly dismayed. They heard a voice beyond the flames warning that someone, Turner he assumed, was running toward the radio blockhouse.

"He's not your Weapons System Operator anymore Straker. Put that stupid gun down and follow me." Older, Henderson nonetheless left the younger Straker behind. Ed sprinted and overtook him as they ran around the flames. Straker could just make out the tail of his plane.

"What the hell do you mean?" The two men cleared the jet fuel fed fire. Fifty yards away was what Straker guessed was the radio center. Just a small concrete block cube he could make out Turner and another man. Twenty-five yards, Straker saw Turner seize the other man and literally twist him, could hear the bones of the screaming man breaking. Turner tossed the man aside and ran into the blockhouse. Henderson and Straker closed.

Turner was bent over a transmitter box, his palms flat on it. Blinding electrical arcs jumped from the building's main feeder line and onto Turner. His back seater turned and looked at him. Henderson was raising his gun to shoot. Turner extended a hand and sent an arc of electricity toward Henderson. The older man was knocked down.

"Kill him Straker! He's not human anymore, chemical warfare experiment, kill him!" Henderson was down but not out.

Straker saw Turner look at him, eyes no longer the same. Turner didn't look angry, animalistic, drugged or anything human. Something really was wrong. Turner had run through fire, Straker could see the burns. No one could take that. Henderson weakly demanded once more for Straker to kill his WIZO. Sensing that things were wrong he aimed his pistol and fired. Turner, despite half of his head being gone still stood. Straker fired a last time.

Martin Czaplicki gave his new temporary partner an appraising look. A full head of dark brown hair complimented piercing light brown eyes. Marisol Foster's prim and athletic body amply filled out her smart business style pantsuit. Foster's English accent only heightened Czaplicki's curiosity about how such a person could be a part of the US Army's Criminal Investigation Command. He pointed left at the upcoming turn as Foster guided their US issued POS truck toward their destination. He watched her slow cautiously and give way to a battered old Chevy truck hauling a load of watermelons. The roadside fruit and vegetable stands were going to litter the highways in the next week.

"Not much to see Agent Foster, El Paso I mean." Czaplicki tried as well as he could to make some conversation. "First time here I guess?"

"I was born in Houston Agent Czaplicki. My father was British—a test pilot for Lockheed. He married an American." She glanced over at him as she drove off of the pavement onto a dirt road. Czaplicki could imagine those piercing brown eyes beneath her mirrored sunglasses. Foster laughed. "That is my stock introduction."

"Okay, then why did the Army send you out here to investigate a probable statutory rape?" Direct and to the point, that ought to do it he thought.

Foster chuckled. "Probing to find out why I'm here agent?" She nodded at the GPS. "The camper should be a mile further. Actually I'm here to combat an alien invasion and not the one from Mexico Agent Czaplicki."

Czaplicki issued a dismayed grunt. He suspected the real reason. "You are down here to prove that Army personnel are aiding the cartels. Washington creates problems and then blames them on others."

Foster licked her lips as she pulled into the camping area. The small camper had seen its better days. Parked in a wash near to the Rio Grande the old trailer was rusted and buckling out near the floor. The smell that assaulted Czaplicki's nose as he opened his door told him that the honey bucket was emptied somewhere nearby. He surveyed the area while Foster who had also gotten out, pulled her briefcase out from behind the seat and proceeded to slip into a shoulder holster that housed one monster of a pistol.

"Gonna shoot his pecker off with that Agent Foster?" Czaplicki guessed he was looking at .44 or perhaps even a .50 caliber handgun on Foster's side.

Private Marcel Simmons had failed to report into his barracks Sunday, three days ago. The next day local authorities came to Biggs Army Air Field with a warrant concerning some photos on a phone belonging to one 14 year old Charity Greer. The local Children and Youth Services had shared Greer's file with local PD and Czaplicki. The angelic Greer had been a frequent runaway and had just three months ago, two months before Simmons' placement at Biggs as an Air Traffic Control apprentice, had an abortion. Marty wasn't judgmental but clearly Greer was no innocent. Simmons on the other hand was a black from a small town in upper New York State. Czaplicki suspected that most of his gangster knowledge, reflected in pictures hanging in his locker, came from music and too many hours sitting before video games. Simmons had checked high on his ASVAB as well as receiving glowing endorsements from his drill instructors. If anyone was trouble Czaplicki suspected that it was Greer, using charms more suitable for an older teen on the naïve Simmons.

The two agents cautiously approached the camper. Greer's irate mother had told the El Paso PD that the couple might be here at her ex brother-in-laws' camp. It was eerily quiet, so much so that Czaplicki could hear the wind blowing the sand through the scrub brush, cactuses and Mesquite trees. Both of them, almost in unison, drew their side arms and took off the safeties. These camps were becoming fewer and fewer owing to occasional flooding but mostly to deadly drug mules that had no mercy for people with which they had chance encounters. It had occurred to Marty that they were just as likely to find this couple shot to death. He hoped that wasn't so. They stood to either side of the door. He nodded to Foster. She knocked loudly; the door opened slowly springing back from Foster's knock. Czaplicki loudly identified himself and then went in low. Foster followed taking high.

Seconds later they had cleared the camper's main living area. Shortly after that they concluded that the trailer was empty. The camper smelled of sour sweat and sex. The single pull out bed's mattress and bedclothes made a trail to the door. Likely someone had been pulled out of the bed, struggling probably. He followed Foster in holstering their weapons. Marty then reached into his back pocket for latex gloves. The blankets moved. Czaplicki heard the characteristic rattle before the viper crawled out from the pile of sheets pillows.

A fifteen year Army veteran Czaplicki had lain in ditches while scorpions had crawled over him, that being preferable to standing up during a firefight. But snakes held a terrible place in his mind. He froze for a split second. Foster did not. She had one hand around its neck while the other held the viper by its rattle. Czaplicki's mouth drop as the woman stared at the snake, stared into its eyes as if it was a person. She went to the camper door and flung it out.

"A desert scavenger agent," she remarked. "Fear of reptiles was noted in your dossier."

"My dossier?" he retorted, rubbing at a slight growth of beard. Army agents were permitted some small latitude when it came to grooming. "I'm not smuggling drugs agent."

"This is not about drugs agent, though that is the lesser evil of what could be wrong here." She surveyed the room as she spoke. So did Czaplicki.

He knelt gingerly and recovered a cell phone. Its cheap pink plastic case had a decal affixed to it proclaiming its owner a hot mama. Foster stood beside him as he searched its numbers and then photos and finally video. Greer was in her all glory on the bed. The young couple had recorded an intimate encounter. Czaplicki really didn't want to watch any of it but he realized that it had been recorded here. Foster made some critical comments about the couples' activities and Marty was about to turn off the phone's video when a blinding light obscured the screen. He bumped into Foster and for a second was keenly aware of her sexuality. Even from the phone's tiny speaker they could hear the couple's screams of terror.

"What the hell!" Czaplicki saw a red suited man—whatever. It looked like the man was wearing a hazmat suit. He had—a silver helmet. Was that a silver helmet? There were two men. They dragged the screaming couple out of the bed and out of the trailer. A bare foot kicked out, the phone's video shook and then turned gray. Probably timed out and shut off on the floor where Czaplicki had found it.

"Still think I'm after dirty Army officers and NCO's agent?" Her mocking smile was gone. "Draw your weapon and let's check the area."

He followed her out into the cool Texas afternoon. She went back to their vehicle and retrieved a small item from her case. It was a Geiger counter. He gulped as she turned it on ad waved its wand around. Now he was wishing that he was involved with the cartels. As dirty and dangerous as that was it was better than this alternative. He scanned the area. Vultures circled over where he knew another clearing lay.

"I don't think you'll need that." He nodded toward the circling scavenger birds. The two headed toward the clearing.

"What do you think we'll find there?" he asked her. Iran, Afghanistan and some time in South America had not left Czaplicki quite prepared for this.

"Probably nothing," she answered. "We've not had much success. But the timestamp on the girl's phone showed that they were taken early this morning. Perhaps we'll find some evidence. By the way, how do you like Texas?"

"It's my job. It is what it is agent. I was in it, over there, but a lot of the investigations were just idiot soldiers doing drugs, idiot soldiers drinking, you've heard it before I guess."

"Yes," she replied. They neared the open area. Czaplicki gulped and said a prayer as he made out two forms on the ground. It was what he thought as they drew closer but it was worse than he had assumed.

It was Simmons and Greer, what was left of them. Both had been opened up and gutted. Czaplicki didn't need advanced forensics training to tell that organs were missing. Simmons' head had been cut off at the top. The boy's brain was gone. Greer's face was a death mask of agony. Marty looked over the area. He mentally winced as he spotted another carcass. He raced over as the body's clothing became clear to him.

"It's Ray Somers, he's a county sheriff." He knelt beside the corpse. That body too had been butchered. "I met him volunteering for the Special Olympics. All the local cops do it. Good people…where in the hell is Stan—Stan Greenfield is Somers' partner. The sheriff's department always sends teams out."

"Do you know where Greenfield lives?" Foster's tone was emphatic. Czaplicki got on his cell and made some calls. He called for help out here but understood somehow that they had to find Greenfield.


	2. Chapter 2

Greenfield had reported that Somers had gone home early. Paperwork for Somers' absence would have been handled later. The sun was sinking low as the two agents pulled up outside of Greenfield's home. The home was a typical rancher in a typical mixed El Paso neighborhood. A few neighbors stared openly at them as they went up the walk toward the front door. They were strangers. Both agents stood off to the side while Foster rang the doorbell. After several attempts Czaplicki cautiously peered through a small window, one of several along one side of the door. He saw Stan Greenfield walk across a hallway. Foster hit the bell again. Greenfield paused, looked toward the front door, and then continued into whatever room was there.

"Damnit, he looked right at me," he hissed. Foster nodded and motioned to the side of the house. The two moved away, finding and then creeping down a side walkway.

Light poured from a large patio door. Czaplicki caught a glimpse of Greenfield moving about his kitchen. He paused for a split second in confusion, looked and looked again. "He has every damn electronic gadget in the house piled onto the table." Foster merely nodded. The pistol, a .50 caliber Desert Eagle was huge in her small hands.

She nudged Marty. Following her gaze he caught sight of…Cindy, yes that was the name of Stan's wife, Cindy. Cindy Greenfield was bent over the couple's kitchen island. Her neck was canted at an unnatural angle, blood dripped from her open mouth to a small puddle on the floor. Stanley Greenfield moved about his wife's corpse, working at tearing apart a flat screen TV. Marty gave Foster hand signals. It was time to go in. Czaplicki checked for a patio door guard and then slid the door open.

"Freeze Stan!" he yelled. Greenfield looked at him and continued his work. "What the hell happened Stan?" Czaplicki reached for handcuffs with his free hand while maintaining his aim with his other.

The handcuffs got Greenfield's attention. He picked up a microwave over and held it over his head. Czaplicki shouted warnings at him expecting that the obviously deranged deputy was going to throw the oven at him. The oven's door popped open. Blue flashes shot out of Greenfield's hands into the microwave. Marty felt a wave of heat on his face, his eyes were felt like they were on fire! The discharge of Foster's gun resonated in his chest. Greenfield and oven jerked back and then turned again on Marty. Czaplicki felt heat again. He was being burned with the damned oven! Somehow Greenfield was holding the oven up despite the fact that Foster's shot had almost taken off his right arm. Marty fired two quick double-taps. Foster fired again. This time Greenfield went down.

Marty smelled burning hair and realized that it was his. He smacked at his head. "I was just shot at with a microwave oven!"

"Are you interested in full time in that regard?" Foster asked him.

This was insane, men in spacesuits kidnapping and dissecting horny teens, him being shot at with an oven. "Yes," he answered.

Elena Straker neatly inserted her daughter's blouses into the suitcase. She was a navy wife, now for thirteen years. She knew how to pack. Five year old Marie was easy to pack up, her brother a different story. Eight year old Emilio Straker had an inventory of certain clothes he'd wear and of course his fantasy figurines. Neither parent was allowed to call them dolls. One of them even vaguely resembled the sword wielding hero from that movie trilogy. Elena had always had a little girl crush for that actor. She hugged Marie and told her to pick out a favored doll for the trip. It was a good excuse to send the girl out of the bedroom.

"He's had a stroke John," she told her husband.

John Straker was a short stocky man that had inherited his father's whitish blonde hair, a stark contrast to Elena's dark Cuban ancestry. He looked handsome in his navy flight suit but it was for his character that she had married him. Right now part of that character, his steadfastness, was turning into an ugly stubbornness. It was an old wound.

"I was in the hospital unconscious when I was nine. He never showed until after I woke up!" Her husband was visibly angry but Elena believed strongly in forgiveness, especially where family was concerned. She also knew that John's mother Mary had poisoned him concerning his father. Elena couldn't say that but she come at the subject from a different angle.

She touched his cheek. "You're just like him you know." Elena was quick to cut off his retort. "I waited for you all those times at sea and the other deployments. I accepted that when I married you, explained to Mari and Emil I don't how many times why dad couldn't be here. But you have your duty and I have mine Johnny." She looked into his blue eyes. "Forgive you father and go see him."

"I'm duty officer for another day. I can't." His answer was contrived, she knew that. The navy wouldn't turn him down for emergency leave for this. His squadron issued cell phone took that moment to ring. Elena was disappointed to see the relief in his eyes. He pulled the phone out of a pocket of his flight suit and turned away from her.

She screened out his conversation while finishing packing. The two Strakers were alike, she thought. The difference was that Mary Johannsen had had no tolerance for the solitary life of the military spouse. Elena respected her mother-in-law but knew that the woman hadn't washed a dish since her divorce from the elder Straker. Her husband was quite well off. So much so that Elena was sometimes embarrassed to go there, feeling inadequate for the things that she and Straker could not afford for their children. The increasing agitation in her husband's voice caused her mind to focus on his words.

"Get the local authorities out there! Four planes just don't crash! Someone had to have punched out! Alert the ready chopper! Yes, south of Winchester, Virginia. I'm leaving now." She watched him put the phone back into his pocket.

"Center reported that they lost contact with Roy Jones' flight, all four aircraft." All anger over his father was gone from Johnny's face. Elena knew that this was compartmentalization. Johnny had already put away their discussion and moved on to this new problem. A Navy flight doc had warned her about the phenomena years ago.

Elena's heart immediately went out to Faye, Jones' wife. Carmen Bennett's husband was Jones' back seat rider, and another close friend of the Straker's. As much as she wanted to call them with consoling words Elena knew that the Navy had protocols for this. No one knew what had happened and this could all be garbled communications.

She went to him, took his face in her hands and kissed him. "Let me know, okay? And please, take care of this and then tell Captain Miller about your father. Whatever your feelings are I don't want that bitterness passed on to Emil and Marie. And just so you know: the only difference between you and Edward Straker is that you are shorter."

Elena was right about not passing this grudge to their children. But she was wrong about forgiving John's father. Straker had endured too many embarrassing moments because of his absentee father. Waiting in school and gym lobbies, the missing man for life milestones, Straker senior just had not been there. From childhood schools, his graduation from Annapolis, his marriage to Elena and the birth of their children, Ed Straker had not been there. Marie had been walking the first time she saw her grandfather. It wasn't contempt that John felt as much estrangement. His father had never been around enough for John to feel anything about him.

"I can put us down in that field commander." The pilot's voice sounded over Straker's headset.

"Circle this area Ernie," he instructed the chopper jock. Straker looked beneath his feet at the dark Virginia countryside. Headlights made a trail down busy Route 81. The flashing lights of fire and police vehicles lit up the scene directly beneath the helicopter. Fires burned along the edge of a tree line. According to Straker's executive officer, who had gotten here over two hours ago, the fires marked what remained of Lieutenant Roy Jones' F-18.

Straker had investigated enough crashes in Iraq and Afghanistan to see that Jones' plane had come down in pieces. Over in those places that meant enemy activity, here in America it probably indicated an equipment failure. He could have believed that for a single ship, but not four. He ordered the pilot to land. So far his exec, Lieutenant Doug McCrery could only account for this F-18. But the remaining three ships were now almost three hours overdue. Every minute they were lost was bad news. The chopper grounded and Straker exited, running low until he was clear of the craft's blades.

Straker made for a group of people, among them McCrery. A police officer stood with his exec. Facing them was a grizzled middle aged man in a leather duster, his haircut and demeanor said military to Straker. He was badly sunburned on part of his face. Beside him was a striking woman, brunette, professionally dressed and about as far out of place out here as it seemed possible to be. Lit up by the lights from the cop's car Straker could see that the military man was pale and sweating, odd on this cool October night, perhaps Virginia's first frost of the fall.

"This is a military matter Ms. Foster." Straker heard the cop tell the woman.

"Homeland Security is taking over this crash scene." The woman, Foster, had a deeply English accent.

"Anyway officer this is a federal matter," the male half of the Foster team proclaimed.

"Commander John Straker," he said, choosing this moment to make an introduction. "May I ask what's going on?" Straker couldn't help noticing Foster's flash of surprise. He would have remembered someone like her he thought.

Another cop, Virginia State Police, joined the group. "You may not interfere with a federal matter officers and certainly not an aircraft accident." Foster was adamant and commanding.

"You're right about that ma'am," one of the troopers answered. "But we have protocols per the State of Virginia. We are setting up a cordon." The officer, a solid looking older man looked at Straker and McCrery. "The military is here. Now, when the FAA and the safety boys are here I'll open that cordon up—if you're cleared by then."

"Four-oh-seven, supervisor," the other trooper's radio sounded. He hit the mic switch on his shoulder strap and responded. "Four-oh-seven Homeland Security has command there. Do you read, over?" The trooper nodded and replied in the affirmative.

"There you are officer. You may set up a perimeter." Straker could tell that neither state trooper was happy with what the woman was saying. "This…crash could possibly be terrorist related."

"Yeah sure, everything is terrorist related there?" the cop retorted. He sighed. "Call the other units and coordinate with the deputies when they get here Pete." The other cop grunted.

Straker watched the disgusted state policemen stalk away. "We want access to the crash area ma'am," Straker told the woman.

"That's not possible commander. Look, after your lieutenant here landed my people got in touch with your air group commander…Captain Phillips, no?" Straker had a sinking feeling about this conversation. He nodded. "I believe that has orders for you in this regard. By the way, we found little in the wreckage but if we find your men we won't hesitate. But you two cannot help anymore."

"This is a navy matter! There wasn't any terrorism! What's this about?" Straker's anger was white hot. He felt McCrery's hand on his shoulder. "The skipper called before you touched down Johnny, back off." His exec told him. Straker asked him what had been said. "We are ordered to assist these agents anyway possible. Look, search and rescue is out looking, but it doesn't look good. There's nothing we can do here."

"Why is it Homeland Security?" He looked at Foster and her partner.

"The agent told you respectfully commander." The male agent was playing cop. He started reaching inside his duster when Straker seized his hand found his thumb, squeezed and twisted while putting a foot out. The agent started falling back and then twisted away. He reached into his duster but Straker had his pistol out before he could get his.

"We're all on the same team here so I know you were just pulling out a cell phone." Straker's anger turned to a controlled cool. "You better start explaining your interest in a military and FAA issue."

"We think that your boys were taken out by enemy fire…commander," Agent Foster said. "There's no need to be harsh here Martin. As the commander said, _we are all on the same team_." Her partner relented.

"Arab terrorists could not have brought a surface to air battery into this country agent." He retorted.

"We believe that it was a new type of portable launcher. Russian weapon makers have been making improvisations on older US designs, a self-seeking laser emitting warhead for one thing commander." Foster seemed adamant, sincere. "Speak to Captain Phillips please sir. Our only purpose is to verify the warhead. We want to find survivors! We aren't interfering with looking for your pilots, commander. In fact I have ordered search aircraft from Dover, McGuire and Andrews as well as the Coast Guard facility in Martinsburg. That is far more aircraft than the FAA could have produced."

"I want hourly updates Foster!" Straker's anger was abating. This Homeland Security agent sounded like she was on the level, however odd and out of place she seemed.

"I promise you that commander." He nodded and allowed McCrery to lead him away.

"They had the place sealed up. Look, commander, Johnny, sometimes the bear gets ya." They were alone in the space between the woods and the field. "Phillips has ordered us home sir. I guess you wanted to stay on station but he told me that you have a personal matter and are due for leave?"

Elena, she had called his CO. Straker was angry and sensed that he would soon be leaving for a bitter reunion with his father. He resigned himself to that as he boarded his chopper. He had napped on the way up from Oceana he would be awake for the trip back. Straker was not looking forward to that.

Straker sat before the family desktop. McCrery had hinted that he wanted Straker to check his mail. He looked uncomfortably around the bedroom. He missed Elena but the last place he wanted to be was with her in Illinois. He decided that checking his private account would take up some time. He needed to make reservations. A note lay on the desk from Elena informing him of their flight number and anticipated arrival time and adding her and the children's love. The monitor showed him that he was connected to the internet. He signed into his account.

Jetjock480 was McCrery's screen name. It suited him. Straker had always thought that he had seen that navy fighter pilot movie one too many times.

Straker saw an attachment, he clicked on it. Doug had managed to find and plug into a flight recorder! Straker's attention went to laser focus. Looking at the recording, the fighter's last fifteen minutes Straker sped through parts of it. He had figured out that the footage was from Jones' gun camera. Altitude, airspeed, engine conditions and the aircraft's attitude were displayed on the side of the digital recording. Straker turned up the desk top's volume. Most of the words were routine pilot chatter up until the last eight minutes.

Jones' locked onto something. Calling center the pilot realized that he couldn't hear air traffic control. Straker then listened in horror as Jones realized that he couldn't speak with the other aircraft of his flight. The chatter between Jones and Gary Bennett grew agitated. There was a flash. Jones rolled the plane violently.

"That was the Entertainer!" Bennett cried, meaning another pilot from the flight. "That thing got his whole ship!"

"Where is it Hustler?" Jones' asked frantically.

Another flash, the detonation of one each F-18 Hornet aircraft, Bennett's voice was full of panic. "They got Frenchy! Coming around our rear! It's a damned flying saucer! Shake it off Viceroy!"

More violent maneuvering, Jones rolled the plane out and then Straker saw it. More like a style of top than a saucer the thing seemed to spin. It looked like a rounded type of pyramid when viewed in two dimensions. How could something fly while spinning like that? Jones' gun chattered. He got it! The thing, much like a top flicked by someone's finger, skittered off and jerked. There it was a rising and falling, almost electronic squealing noise. Straker could hear that and Jones' victory hoot when a single bright light flashed from the UFO. The image went dark.

Straker closed that and hit the second attachment which turned out to be a voice recording from McCrery. "I lucked out and found the recorder boss. I plugged in with the equipment out of the crash recovery bag. I'll be damned if those spooks are Homeland Security. I shrugged the one guy off by telling them I saw something across the highway. I don't think they are onto me. But that chick is hot! Spook or not."

The recording ended. Straker got on his cell and called an old friend. Vince Carson was an ex air traffic controller who had left the navy for the FAA. Straker had served with the former CPO and come to depend on him while he was aboard the _Kitty Hawk_. Carson hadn't been on duty but he conferenced with the outgoing controller for that sector while Straker listened. The flight of navy planes had been tracked and then simply disappeared. Attempts to communicate with them were useless. Civilian airliners reported seeing the fight. Most of them ex military pilots, they knew that it was trouble. The object which the controller believed was some kind of military drone left the battle but was slowing and heading steadily downward. Carson didn't disappoint. He told Straker where he thought it had landed.

Johnny thought long and hard. Captain Miller would follow up on his orders to Straker. He packed a suitcase and then discovered that Elena had already packed his things. He had fought Taliban and Saddam's Republican Guards yet his tiny Cuban wife outwitted him almost every time. Well he still had things to do. Something had attacked his men. More than likely they were all dead. Jones and Bennett for sure, the others he would doubtless hear about within the next twenty-four hours. He went to a closet and got out his pump action 12 gauge shotgun and his .45. He and Elena lived in a lovely neighborhood but it was not on base and he refused to deploy if they were unprotected. Elena had been taught to shoot by her father and shared Straker's sensibilities in that regard.

Straker would fly to Illinois but he would use his Aero Club's twin engine prop plane. Together with several other officers and a few enlisted men they had gone together and purchased an aircraft. They shared mechanical and instructional duties on her as well as hangar rental fees. Right now he knew that he had some hours he could use on it and no one had booked it for the next few days. Miller wanted him to fly to Illinois to see his stricken father. Well, he didn't say how Straker should get there.

"You are here in your dungarees doing an investigation for the Navy, Commander…Straker," the old cop said. He was clearly dubious of Straker.

"There was an incident near the Maryland border last night officer," Straker said. "It's on the news. Some of the debris may have come down up in those mountains."

The old cop look bored yet wary to Straker. He gave Straker and frank look. "I think you are looking for something. My corporal is dumber than a box of rocks unless it comes to food or underage girls but he's good with the computer. Your identity checks Straker. Here in Frackville P-A life is rough. The EPA shut the mines down and folks are poor. Where you say this debris is, is the middle of bear country and crystal meth labs." Chief Biggs sighed. "I have a nephew in the Air Force. He's a good man. I think most folks that sign up and do what you do are good men. I don't buy your investigation story—or all of it. But, anyway, your rental out there won't make it up those fire roads. I'll lend you a Blazer." Biggs got up and got keys out of a beat up wooden cabinet.

"That's kind of you chief. I really am looking for answers about that crash. Eight good men died." Straker took the keys while swallowing the bitter cud of the news that all eight crewmen were reported dead.

The cop opened another cabinet and handed Straker a lever action rifle and some ammunition. "I'm old fashioned. I guess all there is to believe in, in America anymore is the church and you fellows. I don't have the manpower to go with you. Today we're going to arrest another crack cocaine dealer for the fifth time. After a short trial he might get a three year suspended sentence. Go find your answers commander and be careful out there."

Straker compared a topographic map to Carson's estimated trajectory and crash point. He engaged the vehicle's 4-wheel drive. He was off road and the ascent up to where he wanted to be looked to be almost straight up the mountain. All four wheels churned up clay as Straker drove. It took almost as much attention to control the four-by-four as it did an F-18, especially on this excuse of a road. Twenty-five minutes into the drive he topped the mountain's ridge. The truck's engine was at its maximum temperature. Straker looked down the ridge into a long shallow depression. His GPS told him that he should see a crash site where he was looking.

Straker saw a confusion of trees. The UFO might have gone down here or Tasmania as far as any visual sighting might show. This forest was ancient and dense. He doubted that would find anything. Still he continued down a short hill, driving through rough terrain for another fifteen minutes. He was about to turn around. He could stall seeing his father for only so long. That weighed on him until he saw smoke rising a short way from his position. It was probably campers, Straker guessed. He drove a short way until the road became impassable with logs. Yet he could see a ramshackle cabin with a truck parked in front of it. Straker pulled the police truck out of eye sight and got out. He took up the lever action that the policeman had given him and released the safety on his .45.

Straker crept quietly forward. He had received training and commanded Special Operations troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan. One wore many hats in the military. Yet here, in the heart of the USA hackles of fear were rising in him that he had never known before. He decided to stop. Too many trainers, pilot and combat had taught him the old axiom: if it didn't feel right then he shouldn't be doing it. Straker stopped waited and watched while he collected his wits. The sound of automatic gunfire was almost welcoming. It was better than this feeling of strangeness that he was having.

He heard a voice screaming in terror. Only in combat had he heard such a sound. Someone ran by the bushes that lay ahead of him. Then someone else ran by. Red and wearing a...it had to be a motorcycle helmet, Straker guessed. More screams then a weird sound, like a whip going through the air only with an electric sound. The screaming rose and stopped. Straker crawled as near to the ground as he could. He saw a man, whatever in a red spacesuit. It wasn't a hazmat or radiation suit, Straker sensed that. The faceplate was black, no green. The man if man it was carried a silver weapon. He now saw the suited man turning on a fat man that came bounding out of the cabin.

That fat man was wearing shorts and a dirty shirt. A gas mask was pulled over his head so that it rested on top of his head. He screamed pulled the mask the rest of the way off and threw it at the red suited man. Red suit turned and fired. Straker heard the whip again and saw a blue electric net surround the fat man. He went down in a heap. Straker could only think alien applied to the red suited thing. He watched it walk over to the now crumpled fat man, withdraw something that looked like a high tech meat thermometer and then stab the fallen man with it. Even unconscious the poor man uttered a scream. The alien worked the probe around in the man's fat midsection. He withdrew it and then looked at its end. Straker noted that the net had dissolved to a powder.

Another red suited alien joined the first, coming from the cabin. A cylinder hung over his shoulder suspended by a strap. They seemed to confer over the hapless man. Within a minute the new alien took another type of device out of a pouch on his waist. He held it at the base of the fat man's neck. Straker saw a beam and heard a sizzling sound. Before his eyes the man was opened up cleanly. The alien reached into him and, using the beam device again something was cut out of him. Was that the man's liver? Straker's fear was leaving him. Could it be that these things had something on them that induced fear? Straker had seen that in those silly movies that Emil sometimes watched. Straker aimed the rifle at one of the things and fired. The thing jerked and immediately turned toward his direction. Bulletproof he reckoned.

Being a pilot Straker had learned to always have backup plans. He cocked the rifle's lever and aiming past the figures running toward him he fired at a large propane cylinder that sat near the cabin. Nothing, he fired again. The explosion sent both of the aliens reeling. Straker rolled away, got up and drew his pistol. He fired; the alien was less than twenty yards away. This time Straker chose the alien's helmet. The .45's third bullet did some damage, causing dark liquid to spray from the helmet. The alien stopped and tried to hold the liquid in. Was it blood, Straker wondered as he ran from the second red suit. He heard the whip sound again and changed direction. He guessed that it was some kind of high tech taser.

Straker dived and rolled behind a tree. He pivoted and saw the alien pull up something silver and gun-looking. The sound of a machine gun was unmistakable. He felt the tree's splinter on his head and neck. He cocked the rifle aimed and squeezed off a shot. The alien was cautious, for it ducked. Straker ran. Their suits were bulletproof and he doubted that this thing would let him fire away at its helmet. The ground dropped abruptly. Straker remembered this from reading maps for this area. He braced for the cold mountain stream but it still felt icy on his legs. He ran down the stream careful of slippery moss covered rocks.

This tree covered, autumnal forest would be beautiful and worth a hike were a killer alien not following him. Straker had caught sight of the beam thing opening up the unfortunate large man. Aliens and not cholesterol from one too many burgers had been that man's cause of death. He ran along the stream. There was a splash behind him. The alien had waded into the shin deep stream. Johnny was an open target. He ran for the opposite bank of the fifteen feet or so wide stream. Straker stopped, turned, the alien was sighting him with the taser. Straker leapt to the round. The net thing bounced against a tree and then ricocheted into the stream. Straker rolled onto his back.

The electrified web contacted the water. Straker watched the alien jerk and then it was ejected from the water and thrown against a tree. Straker leveled his pistol at it but the thing in the red suit wasn't moving. He looked around carefully before exposing himself as a target. He approached it carefully. The alien didn't move. There were no visible markings on its suit, no symbols or writing or a fun-meter-pegged patch. Straker examined the suit. He had been selected for NASA and had completed some of the training for that, so he was somewhat familiar with space gear. He could see a head through the thick darkened faceplate…he thought. He saw a hand twitch.

That hand was near to its machine gun. Straker recognized that weapon. He kicked it away and jumped on the alien. He knew that its suit was armored; he had seen that when shooting at the other one. There were other ways of dealing with this thing he guessed. He saw the latches for the helmet and dived onto the thing. It was reviving and struggled with him. Straker dug his fingers in until he found a latch. He pushed. The alien's struggles grew fierce. Straker found the other latch and snapped it open. Warm green liquid splashed out onto his arms almost causing him to step off. He pulled the thing's helmet away revealing a wet, human head. The alien vomited green onto him. No, it was coughing up, trying to breath. Straker looked up and seen it in the meadow beyond the trees. The alien's struggles were ebbing.

But Straker's gaze was on what was surely the aliens' ship. He thought of Elena's engagement ring, the setting of the stone only this was inverted. The bottom was like a round saucer while the rest of the UFO ended in an apex, making the top section almost conical. Several cylindrical protuberances jutted from the saucer's rounded bottom. Straker recognized this as the thing that had engaged Roy Jones' flight. The things jutting out of the bottom were glowing and flashing slowly. The UFO was resting at an angle, its entire bottom being convex. That thing was almost 30 yards at its thickest, where the cone met the curved bottom. Straker looked around cautiously. Was there another crewman or more? He guessed that thing, these were like man manning it, couldn't hold more than eight to ten crew.

He looked down and saw the alien, its green skin. The man looked at him. Its pupils were unnaturally small. He had stopped struggling. Green oozed out of his mouth. It coughed weakly sending a splatter of green onto the Straker's jeans. Its arms flailed but it was no stronger than that of one of children when they had been infants. The thing coughed one last time and then issued a last gurgling breath. The UFO's projections started glowing brighter. Straker felt a vibration radiating into his body. He looked down at the dead alien and then at its ship. He looked over at the discarded helmet and saw a pulsing light coming from it. Intuition told him to run.

Straker dropped the alien and plunged across the stream. He remembered that there was a drop on the other side of the cabin. He ran headlong through the woods, tripping one. He rolled painfully but rolled back up and sprinted away. He heard that same high pitched electronic whine that he had heard on Jones' flight data. A glow that overpowered the Pennsylvania noon sun emanated behind him. Straker ran part the now fully engulfed cabin. A chemical smell assaulted his nostrils. He jumped down a short drop. The cabin blew up.

Straker felt an intense wave of heat wash over him. He got a foot caught in some brambles and fell down slamming his shoulder into the ground. He closed his eyes and pushed his face into the ground at the flash. The explosion that followed made the first one seem like a firecracker's demise. The air was sucked out of Johnny's lungs. For a second he thought that this was it. The ground thumped and jarred him. Straker gasped for air. It hit him in a wave. He rolled over and thanked whoever was in the sky for living through yet another dangerous situation. He stood up shakily and made his way back up the hill.

The flaming cabin, the vehicles, trees bushes and grass were all gone. Fire was building to the east in the trees that hadn't been immediately consumed. Straker reckoned the blast area was almost a mile in diameter. He wondered how he would explain his vehicle's loss to the friendly police chief. Straker dusted himself off, looked himself over and started back down the mountain. All in all he expected that he had a banged up shoulder and some cuts from the brush but other than that he was in good shape. He found the road through the smoke that lay upon the ground. He was walking while figuring that he might get back to the town tomorrow morning. He had passed several streams and knew that drinking water wouldn't be a problem.

Straker could stay and investigate further but what would he look for? Besides, there might be radiation from the explosion. He hastened down the mountain road, now a scorched black ribbon. He had much on his mind. First thing was that Jones' cannon fire had not damaged the UFO as badly as he had thought. That crew was, harvesting humans, for so he guessed that to be. The fat man was being cut open after being rendered unconscious. So the aliens must have been prepared to get what they wanted and then take off with their material. That meant that these alien machines were tough customers. Secondly, that alien looked human. After expelling that liquid it was gasping. Did that mean it was breathing the air or was the air poisonous? Straker had some of the material on a leg of his jeans. Surely there was enough for analysis.

He looked down and saw a green stain that was now mostly faded. He walked for almost a mile before he hit the tree line. The volunteer fire companies would soon be on their way. But he thought that for the most parts rains from the day before would save most of the surrounding woods. He heard the approaching vehicle roaring up the road. He stayed in plain sight, knowing that he'd have to explain the 4 X 4's demise to the police chief. A muddy black Suburban came out of the darkening cover of the trees. It stopped before him. Recognition flooded over him when he realized who the woman that got out of the driver's side was.

"Homeland Security again Agent Foster?" The sarcasm dripped from his voice. "Maybe the meth heads here were involved with Islamics?"

"You are a resourceful man commander," she replied. Foster sighed. "I won't dissuade you Straker. But what do you think you saw up here?"

"You know damn well what I saw! Spare me the feel good mind manipulation agent. What are you doing here? How long have they been coming?" Straker was angry.

She shrugged. "Are you aware of that late night AM radio broadcast about strange phenomena commander?"

"What are you talking about?" Straker watched as her partner emerged from the SUV.

"You go down that hill, we will even drive you. You tell Chief Biggs what…aliens attacked some crystal meth lab, you came upon them, fought them and their saucer exploded taking off the top of this beautiful mountain. Does that about sum it up? "Foster was ceaseless. "He will think that you were involved in the production and sale of drugs. The lab exploded and burned a great deal of the woods hereabouts. Do you think that the chief has ever seen the results of an explosion like this Straker? Come along, we'll drive you, one way or the other."

"Someone has to know! Something has to be done!" Straker was furious.

"Tell who? Your countrymen? We are doing something about them sir. Imagine what happens if you tell. We'll even help you with the local constable. So there are aliens raiding drug laboratories, harvesting human organs; what is the name of the late night radio show you Americans have?"

"I'll tell someone! I'm a naval officer!" Straker was resolute but inside he tasted the bitter bite of her words. He would come off as a nutcase.

"Yes you are. You may join that Air Force NCO that can…remote view?"

"Don't forget that Army officer that is a satanic priest." Foster's partner added.

"How's the shoulder buddy?" Straker asked. He was recovering from the insane situation but his anger was still there.

"It hurts. I usually know better than to strike an officer. Next time don't count on that." Straker suspected that the man was his equal in hand to hand combat. He had indeed been lucky during that first meeting.

"Nice show of testosterone boys. Forget that for now. Straker, we can drive down this mountain in agreement or else your life can take a decidedly bad turn." Foster reached out and gripped his arm. "Think about your wife and children."

"How do you know my family?" he asked.

"Let's head back Martin." Foster's tone was deadly calm. "Commander Straker can take his chances with the chief."

He watched the two agents get back into their vehicle. They were right. Straker realized that he had to compromise. He could divulge what he had seen later, after he had some facts and had spoken to the right people. Straker asked them for a ride.

"Hop in commander," Foster said. "You'll see that this is for the best. I know you are thinking about informing the public later. That is fine, but consider that the longer you wait the less likely you are to be believed. So by all means, except my offer! You may think about telling everyone about UFO's later and that is okay, although I fear the ones to hurt the worst will be your family."


	3. Chapter 3

Victor Bergman had the demeanor of a college professor waiting for tardy students. He amazed Marisol Foster with the spring he had in his step. She hoped she would fare as well if she made it to 70. The mixed group of military and civilian personnel finally seated themselves and grew silent. They were, like Foster, leafing through the handout. Foster had already had a chance to go through much of it. It was amazing and filled with might-have-been's. That was Foster's job: investigating might-be's and maybe's.

Her jet-setting father, a former test pilot and Euro Aviation executive had always made sure that whether on the Riviera or home at Gloucester that Marisol had a good education and was always challenged. Paul foster's ex-wife and Marisol's mother had pushed her equally hard. That in turn led her to pursue two degrees in the hard sciences. Marisol could have worked for a large biotech or pharmacological firm and had in fact done so briefly. But making drugs to sexually excite fifty plus men and women soon lost its appeal, especially after Britain's MI5 had approached her concerning a mysterious virus. The infection was alien and marked the beginning of Foster's training for her country's internal security service.

Because of the growing alien threat the men and woman selected either had or received rigorous military training as part of being taken up into the fight. Foster had excelled at those things, finding that she craved the higher calling of protecting others. She was soon taken into the organization. That was its only name. It was not MI5, CIA, MOSSAD or any of the other alphabet soup of clandestine government agencies. Although Marisol or any other of the organization's members could secure ID showing that they were assigned to any of those agencies. Marisol looked around the room at the assemblage of men and women, some in uniforms some not. This group represented many nations, many different ideologies; some of them were, publically, sworn enemies, but not here. Bergman cleared his throat loudly.

The academic's balding head was accented by sideburns that belonged in a 70's discotheque. He was of medium height and thin yet his presence was imposing. "When the government called upon me to decipher a database I thought at first that they had the wrong man. My expertise is in astrophysics, not computer science. But since the world's governments have taxpayer money to throw away I suppose that it was reasonable to ask an astrophysicist to crack an alien database."

"Although at the time I harbored the notion that I was being used as a control in order to create a new digital encryption methodology. But by then General Straker recruited me into the organization. It has taken decades and many researchers besides me but it was finally accomplished." He paused and folded his hands behind his back. "Our enemy comes from the future."

Foster was taken aback. Bergman had been the one voice for the organization that advocated for contacting the aliens, finding out what they wanted. "You've not used that term before Professor."

"But you claim in this report that they came from 1982." Admiral Gunther Bader stated. The admiral had been instrumental in unifying the old East and West German Navies while tapping off some of their resources for use by the organization. "That is the past."

"Another past admiral," Bergman replied, adding a sigh. "It was the future for Thomas Mantell right up to the point that his aircraft collided with the alien ship. And Miss Foster is correct; I had hoped to find some common ground with the aliens. But the contents of the spacecraft's on board database suggest otherwise."

Bergman waved his arms. "Let me take you back to the night of Mantell's midair collision, to a world where that collision never occurred, where the computer and internet revolution never occurred because there was no alien technology showing us that those things could be created. The Americans landed on the moon as they did in our now, but there was a thirst for space travel in that reality that we never had. By 1975 every major economic power had a lunar installation. It helped greatly that practical fusion power was discovered in the early seventies. The moon was their main source for Helium-3 the fuel for that. By 1980 all of Great Britain, most of Europe and parts of America and the Soviet Union were using fusion power."

"Professor Bergman, say I believe this time travel notion. Frankly it sounds like a poorly written fan fiction." Foster listened to the woman that headed up the American NSA. Although her name was public knowledge here she allowed herself to be referred to only as Miss Jones. "The aliens…there, started abductions in the late sixties. We are nearly certain that the abductions here didn't start until the nineties. It would seem to me that, if they did do this time travel in some plot to a…you mention specific people that were to be killed. Some sort of robot from the future kills father of rebel leader nonsense, then the aliens have failed."

"You're current with your Science Fiction Miss Jones, if nothing else," Bergman retorted. "In fact whatever change they made affected the aliens as well. They must have known that—they are winning."

Foster heard muffled exclamations throughout the room. Outside, it was cool on the streets of Naples. No one could know that here in this rented church meeting room; the fate of the world in a war against an unknown foe was being planned. She looked at the medieval works of art. The carving of Christ hanging painfully from the cross dominated one entire stone wall. Marisol had no religious training yet she believed in something, not in spite of her education but because of it. If only life could be as random as science declared it to be.

"Last week a flight of US F-18's was engaged by a U-FO and destroyed. Deliberately I believe. Before that the alien raid on Saky in the Crimea. Probably a hundred people abducted, twice that many harvested for organs and thousands infected with the virus. Not to mention the damage done with the sheer number of witnesses." Bergman leaned against a wall. "In 1980, in the other timeline, SHADO was holding back the aliens."

"Shadow?" asked Australian Air Marshal Cranston.

"Supreme Headquarters, Alien Defense Organization—SHADO," Foster interjected.

"What's the progress on the virus Miss Foster?" Dmitri Altukhov looked like a kindly grandfather. Foster knew that his looks hid a man who was a cold blooded killer when it came to his country's security.

"We have farmed out research to competing laboratories. There are some promising avenues. We might find an antivirus tomorrow or perhaps never." Discovered after Edward Straker had taken command of Facility 44, the alien virus had been a mystery. Straker's unfortunate Weapons Officer had been infected. Straker had traced that man's family back to where the original UFO had crashed. Shortly after finding Turner's family connection with the aliens, biologists working in 44 had discovered the virus. Local townspeople had thwarted the aliens whose mission, according to Bergman, had been to assimilate into society spread the virus and also to assassinate a select group of people. Looking through Bergman's report Foster read that the aliens had even gone as far as tying the reason that the people on the kill list were to be removed to that individual. That seemed important to Foster but she was not sure why at this point. It was time for a sober moment.

"We think that six percent of the population carries the virus at this point. We know that it allows the infected person to be controlled by the aliens. We know that it is activated by contact from an alien. I strongly believe that at some percentage of infected people the aliens will move against us." Foster's statement sucked the noise out of the room such that even people's breathing seemed loud.

"Why did SHADO succeed and we can't?" Miss Jones asked.

"They had the high ground," said China's representative, Colonel Woo. Foster knew that Woo was as much a Chinese Army colonel as she had been a CID agent. But of all of the organization's members, Woo got the most done. What he did in China Foster did not know, but sensed that he was high up in the Chinese leadership. Woo was also a staunch advocate for her. Why, Foster did not know.

"What?" Jones asked.

"The bloody moon," Cranston interjected. "SHADO had the moon as a first line of defense. I can't speak for everyone here but I know Australia can't afford a Roman candle right now. And, the aliens are likely to shoot us down before we get there even if a mission could be financed."

"Especially since they already have a base on the dark side Marshal," Bergman added. Cries of dismay sounded, which from this usually stoic group was amazing. "If you refer to the last page of my report, the image was taken by the Wanderer probe, the one you might have read about that was built by a consortium of British universities and launched thanks to our Russian friends."

The image showed a lunar crater. Within the shadow of that crater lay a series of concentric and obviously manufactured rings. Smaller objects dotted the interior of the rings. Several large cylindrical structures lay at different points on each ring. An oblong construction dominated the center. It had an almost Eastern look to it whatever it was. The smaller objects were UFO's. Bergman's report suggested that there were around 200 of them on the surface.

"We don't know their plans but this facility looks able to support even more craft." His pronouncement carried the same weight as that of a physician informing a patient of their impending demise.

"Two hundred is bad enough," said Miss Jones. "Their beam weapons could destroy a city. Never mind if we can stand up to them militarily, the US lacks the political will to do anything, we'd buckle."

"So would Russia," Altukhov interjected.

"China would try to deal with the invaders on a mercantile basis and go to the slaughter doing so," Woo added.

"So far we don't even have something parallel to SHADO," Cranston said. "But we could." All eyes turned to him with questions. "Look, let's be grown ups here abouts. We all know that we have secret weapons in production: Miss Jones, Australia has serviced some of your new DDX destroyers, what, six of them on the high seas? Mister Altukhov, Russia is testing a hypersonic air-to-air missile is it not? Australia, the UK and Canada are ready to field a laser tracking system that can replace conventional radar. Mister Swartz you Israelis are making an armored vehicle with a flexible and reflective type of armor."

"And you Chinese are flying some kind of stealth aircraft off of our coasts Colonel Woo." There was hostility in Miss Jones' voice.

"Miss Jones, currently your government is using us as an enemy. We've seen this pattern from the US for too long: create a crisis or opponent to maintain your government. We do not understand this since we finance a sizeable number of your people to sit at home all day and play video games and watch the televisions we make for them. And we don't forget that your country has been the only nation to use nuclear weapons in anger." There was anger beneath Woo's calm rebuttal.

"Colonel, Miss Jones, arguing where get us nowhere!" Foster snapped. "Marshal Cranston, you are correct. SHADO needs to become a reality, an organization with military force as well as agents such as myself on the ground."

"You should command SHADO Miss Foster," Woo interjected. "You have taken the lead since the organization recruited you."

"I was thinking about maintaining command over ground issues but I had someone in mind for the military role. I was thinking about recruiting Commander Straker." Several mouths dropped open after this declaration.

Straker is retired, and has had health issues I believe," Altukhov had been one of Edward Straker's closest confidants when the organization was being formed. In fact, Straker, along with the Russian had been the founders of the organization.

"His son Commander John Straker is quite healthy." Marisol informed the members of what had gone on in the woods of Pennsylvania. "Straker was selected for NASA and went through the initial training. His appointment was cancelled due to budget cuts. He is an experienced pilot and has commanded several special operations groups in the Middle East. He has twice received commendations for his military and organizational skills. And, I must admit that I'd rather have him on the team than discredit him."

"Lots of people have seen things Miss Foster," Jones interjected.

"Yes and in most of those cases they understand that they'll come off as crackpots. Straker is another of those rare exceptions." Foster knew that people like Straker that had found out about the aliens, and possessed the talent and drive to publicize that fact, had been discredited. Sometimes they were set up as embezzlers, sometimes as terrorists, sometimes as partakers of forbidden pornography. In every one of those cases their lives had been destroyed. All because they had stumbled upon a dreadful secret and were judged to have the character to act on it.

"It's moot unless we get to the moon," Bergman's voice seemed to bring clarity to the room. "The colonel is correct about the high ground. But the cost would be enormous. Yet we have to, else any effort here on earth only forestalls the day. You asked what changed my mind Miss Foster: it was the alternate timeline. The aliens there set about attacking without remorse, the same as this mission of theirs to alter history in their favor. Thankfully I believe that those towns' folk where the original U-FO crashed accidentally triggered some kind of a warning beacon. The aliens may have become confused getting a message from earth of the past but it made them pause in our timeline. Straker's man sent out a homing signal however, ringing the dinner bell so to speak."

"A new manned lunar expedition," Altukhov started, while looking up at the ceiling in concentration. "It would have to large enough to establish a base right away while sending some kind of force against the aliens there, about a trillion and a half Euros."

Foster listened while typing names and dates into her phone's browser. Yes a moon landing and base would be expensive. Yes no single nation could afford it with the world economy a shambles. Yes, people would be suspicious if there was a multinational effort and yes there would be anger over what would be seen as yet another waste of people's money. SHADO, for Marisol was already thinking of the organization under its new name, SHADO had to act in secret while doing something enormous and in plain sight for all to see. The voices grew louder as the usual pettiness came out of SHADO's directors.

"We are going to mount a multination flight to harvest fuel for fusion power." The arguing abruptly stopped. All turned to the sound of her voice. Finally Bergman chuckled.

"That might be a good cover but fusion may be decades away Marisol." Bergman was sure of himself and normally Foster would defer to one of the greatest minds of this and the last century. But not this time, she had a notion but she needed time.

"I think that I can make it happen in the next year." Her assertion was bold and she could see their skeptical looks, Woo's included. "Right, are we agreed upon Straker?" The organization never took formal votes, but there was resolution. They agreed with her choice for commander.

"Alright!" she exclaimed. "I'm off to recruit Straker for command of SHADO. I'll assign our new associate, Mister Czaplicki, the task of getting started on the lunar issue. I know you all need time to discuss Marshal Cranston's proposal with your countrymen. We'll meet next week." Foster's heels were noisy on the stone of the ancient floor as she departed. All eyes were on her she knew. She hoped that the faith they had placed in her was warranted.

"So Adler thinks that yet another of his students is attracted to him," Geir Lindner told Ernst Quiller. Quiller laughed but his dart left this hand and hit a center ring. Lindner was in trouble.

The smoky _gasthaus_ was hitting its busiest time. A fire crackled in the centuries old fireplace surrounded by tables full of old academics such as himself and Lindner. Quiller saw Klaus Gerhardt probably the oldest professor at Heidelberg, alternately get up, sit down and repeat the process. Quiller wasn't worried: Frau Gerhardt would be along soon to collect her drunken husband. These were all professors of the hard sciences. It was good to come here, drink, have fun and have rational conversations. The official campus drinking establishment was the haven of the political science, sociology and modern history professors. That place was noisy, being dominated by loud people with narrow minded views who, were the blinders ever to be removed, would see that their ideas hadn't worked for two hundred years.

"This one is all woman hopefully?" Quiller retorted. Herr Adler's last student infatuation had turned out to be a girl who hadn't started life in that gender and still had the vestige of her original equipment.

Lindner shrugged and smiled. "The Americans have an expression—too much information."

At 61, bald and a little heavy in his belly Quiller was satisfied with his life. His wife, Mallory, was a good partner. They had two children, a girl and a boy, both of whom Ernst thought were imbeciles, but had given Ernst and Mallory five wonderful grandchildren. So he was glad that he was not Wolfgang Adler, whose playboy academic panache had been old at the end of the last century. It was now pathetic and Adler was the butt of many cruel jokes and stories. Geir's volley of darts quickly erased Ernst's lead. He gestured toward the bar.

"Ernst, do you know any East German Secret Police?" Lindner nodded toward a tall rugged looking man. His short cut black hair defiantly was not the university norm. The barmaid was speaking to the man while pointing to Quiller. While East Germany was no more, Quiller understood his friend's reference; the man looked like a policeman. Quiller would find out in a few seconds as the man walked up to him and extended his hand.

"Doctor Quiller, my name is Martin Czaplicki. I'm with the National Science Foundation from the United States." Quiller noted that his German was flawless. Ernst took his hand. "Might I have a few minutes of your time sir?" Quiller gestured for the Czaplicki to take a seat. "May we speak alone?" he asked while producing an ID.

Ernst was suspicious. Why would someone involved with a science foundation want to speak to him alone and why would he flash an ID? Lindner asked the stranger those very questions. Czaplicki countered by asking Geir to join them and explaining that the reason for his visit was specific to Quiller. Lindner accepted that but Quiller could see that Geir was as skeptical as he. Czaplicki ordered another round for all of them. They were all somewhat more relaxed after the beer arrived.

"Professor, we are interested in your 1971 work on nuclear fusion. You produced a study but then put it on the shelf." Czaplicki had gotten right to the point.

"I felt at that time that the computer modeling being done in support of climate research held much potential. Also the cost of a working power plant was enormous as well as obtaining fuel." Quiller the boy genius produced a theory and even went as far as designing the power plant, having at the age of 18 degrees in both nuclear physics and engineering. He deeply regretted that decision but there was no going back and computer modeling had proven useful in many disciplines. He considered that some vindication for his decision. Also he had had a fear that was his theory ever to be tested the price of failure would be high. Ernst hadn't wanted the term _Quiller's Folly_ to become a synonym for grand, expensive failure.

Czaplicki took a sip of beer and then asked Ernst if he still had that study. "Of course, I'm a university professor. I probably have my first childhood book report somewhere. Why do you ask?"

"We'd like you to make that a reality professor. Tell me, with unlimited funding and no regulatory nonsense, how long would it take to build a plant?" The man's question caught Ernst at unawares.

"You're probably talking about a hundred billion Euros for the pilot plant." Quiller frequently updated the cost while wondering how the world would look had he moved forward those many decades ago.

Czaplicki shook his head. "We want three working plants, one here on the continent, one on mainland China and one in America."

Lindner's laughter fairly exploded out of his mouth. "You're going to take your moon ship up and scoop up the hundred tons of Helium-3 that you need!" Ernst's friend and colleague's discipline was in astrophysics. Geir knew what he was talking about.

"This is some sort of a joke," Quiller complained. "It is growing tiresome."

"Look, I'm not a scientist," Czaplicki retorted. "I'm just a representative. But, if you'll follow me outside sir there is someone there that can explain things to you."

"Watch it Ernst!" Lindner was clearly alarmed by Czaplicki's invitation. Could this be some kind of elaborate attempt at robbery?

The stranger sighed, reached into his leather coat and fished out an envelope which he then handed to Quiller. "That's for your time tonight professor." Quiller opened it. He was looking at a three centimeters thick stack of Euros. He carefully rifled through them. They were in notes of one hundred. "I'm not trying to rob you, just a few moments please." Quiller got up.

"No Ernst!" his friend insisted.

"I shall be safe old friend. Keep an eye on this until I return." Quiller left the envelope with Lindner then laid a hand upon Lindner's shoulder, squeezed and then followed Czaplicki.

The Heidelberg night was cold. Many people were out such that Quiller was confident that he would not be robbed, especially with the large contingent of BPOL, German Federal Police and their motorcycles that were milling around a limousine. Czaplicki escorted him to that very vehicle. The window of the passenger compartment was open but it was dark inside, cloaking the occupant. Two serious looking, dark suited men stepped toward Quiller. One of whom produced a scanning wand. Ernst started to lift his arms when a voice from the car instructed the men to stop and let Quiller by. One of them looked him over for a second and then opened the limousine's door for him. He took a deep breath and then got in the car.

Ernst recognized the chancellor although he hadn't voted for her. He listened while she explained the need for the developed nations to get away from fossil fuels. It was a sober discussion, laced not with hysterics about running out of oil and coal but rather the human cost incurred by rogue nations and terrorists. She doggedly dismissed his assertion that his theory was just that, and that the cost if he was wrong would be astronomical. In answer to his concerns about the amount of fuel necessary she countered that a lunar mission and base were in the near future. This was to be an effort on the part of almost all of the developed nations. With the price tag being what Ernst guessed, it would have to be. Reluctantly he accepted, deathly afraid of failure as he was. He was shaking as he exited the chancellor's car. Czaplicki and two other gentlemen fell into step behind him. He was shaking his head mumbling about failure.

"You'll do it professor," Czaplicki told him. "Why, it's almost as if you already have." Quiller stumbled, chasing away his questions about Czaplicki's strange comment. One of the men caught him. He cursed his clumsiness. Many Heidelberg streets remained stone paved, preserving the ancient look of the city. But it made for treacherous walking at times, especially for elderly professors. Czaplicki stuck out his hand. "Welcome aboard sir." He then gave Ernst his card and told him to call if he needed anything. He bid Quiller a good night, turned and left. The rest of his entourage remained with him.

"I'm alright," he said, referring to his stumble while thinking that he was dismissing them.

"Sir, we are assigned to you." The man was casual about what he had just said.

"What?" he asked sharply.

"The chancellor wants to make sure that nothing happens to you professor." This from the other…security man, Quiller wondered. Quiller's world had suddenly gone inverted.

John Straker ruminated over the events in Pennsylvania. He cared little for the man sleeping in the room beside the waiting area where he now sat. Thoughts of an alien ship and people that had the authority to be anyone they wanted, it was chilling. The idyllic scene of snow covered branches outside of this Urbana, Illinois hospital comforted him little. Foster was correct: he could prove nothing. Yet, if these things were harvesting people as his investigations of what had been random events now seemed to confirm, how could he remain silent? Elena believed that his preoccupation came from emotions over his father, which was fine. Could he tell her the truth and would she accept it?

He leafed through a news magazine bearing last month's date. The featured story then had been the terrorist attack on Saky, something which his Intelligence officer had told him was fishy. A companion to that story on the next page told of drug cartels and mysterious lights over El Paso, Texas. Last week Straker would not have connected the two. Now he saw a dangerous pattern. Was he like that Princeton genius though, connecting random events as part of some mental problems? Aliens invading earth, taking organs, it all seemed the stuff of b-movie science fiction. Yet even a casual search through these waiting room magazines revealed dozens of strange events and when one inserted alien as the cause they suddenly made sense. Abductions blamed on kidnappers where there didn't seem to be a financial incentive, mutilations blamed on serial killers without following up such assertions with taskforces to catch said killer, attacks on targets that had no religious, or strategic value being blamed on terrorism.

Was Foster correct? If he revealed what he had seen would that make things worse? Four US-four human manned aircraft had been destroyed, their crews dead. Straker could only explain such an attack as a probing maneuver. The UFO that had destroyed them had then purposefully landed in a secluded area in order to harvest body parts. Straker put down the magazine and closed his eyes. Islamic terrorists, rogue nations, even the Cold War, before his time, were the things with which was familiar. Hostile aliens belonged to the Saturday night movies. Maybe it was a good thing that he was distant from his father.

The man's condition was steady. He was partially paralyzed but could see, speak and had his mind. Johnny felt some remorse but no more than he would feel for any elderly man thus stricken. Elena and their children had fawned over his father. Straker knew that Elena had taken the kids and spent several weeks on and off with his father while John had been deployed. Their image and memories of this man was far warmer than was Johnny's. John had merely told the elder Straker to get well and had left the room after what seemed like the most uncomfortable two hours of his life. Elena had taken the children to lunch just ten minutes ago allowing John an excuse for a break. He had declined eating. Straker's appetite hadn't been good since his time in Pennsylvania.

He looked up to look out the window again. Straker nearly jumped out of his skin. Calmly sitting across from him was Agent Foster. She was studying him intently and upon seeing his recognition she proceeded to slip on some heels. Her stocking feet explained how she had silently snuck up on him. Straker noticed her sexiness for the first time. She looked more like a fashion model than a government official. Yet his combat sense told him that this woman was not some vacuous beauty and that she was dangerous.

"Right, reminiscing about family or reexamining the world?" She might have been asking him about the weather, so nonchalant was her tone. A woman, well into her elder years, shuffled by, pushing a mobile IV unit. She smiled a toothless grin at them.

"Are you here to…shut me up?" he asked. The hospital smelled like lime cleanser that mostly managed to cover the bad smells beneath. The odor and the sterile surroundings lent a surreal quality to the situation.

"I am here to tell you a story about two men and then to make you a proposition. I shant be long however your family is on the way to an upscale eatery across town. They will be at least an hour, what with this snow on the ground. Fortunate them running into a drug company representative that had coupons for free meals, lovely family by the way commander."

She allowed him no time to respond. "It was 1981. A British test pilot and engineer had concluded the airworthiness trials on a business jet that was one of the first European aviation collaborations. Anxious to make a dent in the American market he decided to fly the new plane to Ohio where there was to be an airshow. He took his wife, but their daughter, a precocious brat they left behind because she had problems with her Eustachian tubes. You are aware of the tubes that connect one's middle ear to the throat?" He nodded. "They departed from France. Just past the Isle of Wright they encountered a U-FO, the new jet was supersonic and was at 65,000 feet. The U-FO was on a descent for the American coast. It was an accident probably, a midair no different than if two of our aircraft met. Anyway, the aircraft was thrown into a spin from the U-FO's turbulence. The pilot lived, recovered from the Atlantic after a few days. His wife perished."

She sighed and then continued. "On the other side of the Atlantic a former American military officer was in charge of something called Facility 44, formed after the crash of the first U-FO in 1948. The man, using Forty-four's staff, discovered that the aliens had infected people with a virus. Almost singlehandedly, that man changed 44 from a few biologists and physicists to a rudimentary fighting organization. He created a small network of air traffic controllers, soldiers, and ordinary citizens that formed the core of something called the organization."

"That was important as the US government had been quietly defunding 44, thinking that they had wrung all of the value out of it." She held up her phone. "The technology that allows for this was gotten from 44's U-FO. But this man, the organization's first real director found funding elsewhere. He was able to track the U-FO that had caused the business jet to crash. He and his team found it in Maine. The aliens were harvesting humans. The U-FO self-destructed, as did yours. He discovered that the aliens' suit sends the wearer's bio signs back to their craft, probably signals it that its pilots are dead. During the time that he was investigating the crash his son had been struck by a car, hemorrhaging on the brain."

Realization hit Straker. He took a quick breath. "My Father," was all that he could say.

She nodded. "Secrecy was paramount. The world then as now, lay in a shambles. The Cold War was running at full steam. It was thought that public knowledge of the aliens would not unite us; instead every major nation would think the aliens a manifestation of their terrestrial enemy. Meanwhile, the public would panic, riots, looting, the end of social order."

"You don't know that!" That's what was gnawing at him: that public that Foster spoke of deserved to be able to defend themselves. They had to know! Straker grew confused trying to reason out what she was saying while looking back on a lifetime of his father being away.

"The world has already come close to war over these aliens, especially as one of the alien pilots from '48 happened to be covered with tattoos bearing Cyrillic script." He was aghast.

"How could that be?" The alien whose helmet he had taken off had indeed looked human except for the green skin.

"One thing at a time commander, it broke your father's heart that he couldn't be at the hospital with you."

"You couldn't have known that! I doubt you've been in this organization that long and he retired almost ten years ago!" She shook her head, calm against his glare.

"Edward Straker has acted in an advisory capacity since his retirement. I also believe that he was curious. For you see, he went to Europe and not only talked the pilot out of going public with what he had seen but also recruited him into the organization. The pilot, Paul Foster, Chief Operations Officer for Europe's largest aviation concern brought a lot of covert help to the organization."

"Foster, you mean…" His head was reeling.

"My ears are better since then." She nodded. "We all have our demons Straker. My father's way of acting on his are alcohol and young ladies. His current love is nine years younger than me. That wouldn't bother me except that she has the intellect of an avocado."

"Anyway," she continued, cutting his hundred questions off in the process. "Right now I estimate that six percent of the human race is infected with the alien virus. So you tell me, in a room of fifty people where three might be infected, what do you think the other 47 will do? Will they remain calm, sing Jimmy Buffet songs perhaps? Perhaps the human race would come together. But what if we don't?"

"So why tell me all of this now?" he asked. Foster was correct. The human race might act in its own best interest but the consequences of the alternative were unthinkable. Straker wondered about which virus she was speaking. Bird Flu, Swine Flu, AIDS, was one of them alien and if so what was the threat? Of the three AIDS seemed the most lethal but was being beaten in developed countries.

"SHADO needs a commander. We intend on building both an earth and space based force that will operate in secret to deal with the alien threat. I personally suggested you to the a….board shortly after our meeting. I'm sorry about your men, but the aliens have killed many more than that. Why don't you come work for us as commander?"

He laughed. "No one could pull that off Miss Foster, a secret military force, and what kind of space force?"

"Actually many countries have by operating new systems in plain sight but not advertising that fact. Currently we intend an orbital detection device and a force of interceptors on the moon." She held up a hand. "Before you laugh, have you heard of Prometheus, beyond the mythological person?" He shook his head. "Within the next year a lunar expedition will be launched in order to mine the moon's surface for Helium-3 for the new fusion plants. It's a multinational effort to once and for all end Islamic terrorism by ending oil as a primary energy source—officially. The mission will be dedicated to the survivors of the horrific terrorist attack upon Saky. Unofficially this mission will put SHADO on the moon."

"This…shadow, doesn't miss a beat? I suppose you'll be under me if I accept?" Straker wondered just how deep this thing went.

"Supreme Headquarters, Alien Defense Organization to be precise, and yes, we miss much. Else we wouldn't be losing now. Your father laid the groundwork for us to operate as we have but we need a moon base and we need to remove the aliens that are there. We need someone experienced in battle. I do prefer to choose the men that I might find myself under, but no, I'll be in charge of ground operations, sort of a co-commander. I'm a scientist first and an investigator second although the two go hand in hand. I'm interested in the virus and I want nothing more than to lay my hands upon a live alien. On the other hand I can neither plan a military campaign nor fly a spacecraft. You've done both."

In the simulator he thought bitterly. The one thing that actually had created a return for the taxpayer was the very thing that his government was busy cutting. Straker had been proud to be selected for NASA and just as equally passionately angered over his dismissal due to budget cuts. There was something to this SHADO's mission, a chance for him to realize a dream. He shook his head. Straker had always believed that he was shielding Elena and their children from the barbaric things that happened abroad. Now he realized, bitterly that he had been fighting a lie. His father had apparently dedicated his life to fighting these aliens. But the very nature of these things, beings that flew through space as easily as humans cruised the skies and seas, how could anyone fight against that? Foster had even admitted that they were losing.

"Why don't you ask your father? And for the record their ships aren't impervious nor are their crewmen. Perhaps we can't beat the virus or fight their technology, but wouldn't you want to say you tried?" She was convincing, coming from her character he believed rather than her beauty. He stood up shakily. "I'll be waiting for your answer."

The hospital's severely clean tile, the smell of disinfectant, a young man pushing an elderly patient in a wheelchair, it all seemed unreal to Johnny. He walked uncertainly to his father's room. He went inside. Edward Straker was resting under a blanket. No, he wouldn't wake him, wouldn't ask. Johnny was turning away when he heard his father's voice. The old man was peering across the room at him.

"You have something to say to me son?" Edward Straker asked him. His speech was slurred somewhat from the stroke but there had been no major paralysis or loss of vocal capability.

Was it worth all that time away to fight off alien invaders? No, he couldn't ask that. "You remember that boat that you got me?" He had run out into the street thinking that a passing car belonged to his returning father. That was when he had gotten hit.

"Going to bust my chops over that? I'm sorry, more than you can know that I wasn't there for you and your mother." He looked strong despite the stroke. His blond hair was mostly gray but he still had a full head of it. The piercing blue eyes were there. Elena had told him that he had inherited those.

"I think I know, but I was going to tell you that I built an airplane with Emil, just like we did the boat. He's got a good eye for that stuff." Straker wanted to ask, to tell him about Foster and her tale. Maybe Straker senior would say that it was all a joke on him.

"I was thinking back then that my job would be over. But, look son, you've deployed with the navy, thinking that you were protecting something. You have to believe me; I was trying to protect you and your mother. I stayed away. Mary wanted that and she got the life she wanted. Stewart is a good man." His stepfather had tried to be there, physically at least. Mentally John had always suspected that he was calculating the profit margin on cattle, his business. Straker would have followed Stewart except that he had looked up at the sky during an air show. He wanted to fly. He remembered his mother's disappointment in him for that. "Emilio is a good looking boy. You finally broke the blond haired Straker curse."

He chuckled while running a hand over his severe military cut. "I had no such luck. Fath—dad, don't take this the wrong way, it's not to fight. Would you…if you had it to do all over…"

"I got some small amount of time with you and your mother. I'll accept that and call it good. The thought of what could happen…" Was he going to divulge what he had done all of those years? "My mind wanders son." Straker walked over to the bed and touched his shoulder, squeezed gently.

"Get some rest…dad. I'll be back later okay?" He smiled. The elder Straker seized his wrist and squeezed.

He turned and left. Foster was not in the waiting area. He peered out of the window. Elena was pulling into the lot. He grinned after she intentionally caused the rental van to skid in the icy lot. Their children were laughing. He was lucky, Elena could turn almost anything into a happy event.

"Mister Straker?" the nurse was all professional. He nodded. "The woman from the drug company said that you forgot your cell phone." She handed him a phone. It wasn't his. He thanked her while searching through the tiny phone's menu. There was only one contact listed. He called her.

"Well?" was the only word she uttered.

"I'll do it."

"Pitch the phone. I'll be in touch."


	4. Chapter 4

DDX Admiral George Dewey

"It's the most accurate telemetry you could ask for." John Straker sat comfortably cross legged on the bridge's command chair while he spoke.

Straker explained the workings of the newly orbiting Space Intruder Detector to Captain Pete Townsend. Straker hadn't bothered to ask if _Dewey's_ skipper had gotten any ribbings over his name. The answer to that was plain to Johnny. Townsend was amazed at what SID could do. Frankly, so was Straker, especially when the idea for SID had come from the alien hard drive, based on their notion of SID and its capabilities. According to Marisol laser refraction computing was yet another breakthrough that Victor Bergman had discarded in this timeline. Knowledge that his theory was more than that had allowed Bergman to create SID's artificial intelligence, the world's first functioning AI.

"So that thing can make intuitive leaps?" Straker nodded in reply to Townsend's question. "The laser tracking system was quite an upgrade as is. I'm concerned though that SID isn't looking at China or the Mideast sir."

"SHADO is a multinational force Pete," Straker told him. "How is the crew coming?" Straker understood Townsend's concern. The _Dewey's_ captain had been briefed on the aliens yet he had never seen one, while he had spent a lifetime being told that Islamics and lately the Chinese were the enemies.

"The command team and all of the senior NCO's are SHADO now. A few of the seamen have made it through the security clearance and blood screenings." Townsend nodded at the three enlisted men on _Dewey's_ bridge. "These sailors of course," he added. "Johnny," Townsend started. The two had been Annapolis classmates. "Aren't we giving away the store? I mean Prometheus launched from Diego Garcia? Christ, Ed that is China's backyard."

"They are giving us permission to dock at Chinese ports. The world situation is touchy. Foster called me this morning and told me that the official percentage is now seven." Straker meant the estimated number of people carrying the alien virus. "Want to tell that to a population that is functionally paranoid?"

That news and question quieted his old friend. Straker looked through the bridge's windows at the azure Indian Ocean. The day was blisteringly sunny, making the ocean sparkle. Wave height was low so that Straker could see the horizon. That was saying much for the low profile destroyer. The DDX's bridge looked much like those on the aircraft carriers on which he had served: a conventional wheel and thruster quadrant, a large chart table, radios and phones within easy reach of the crew. Straker sipped on a bottle of water while the destroyer cut through the water. The bridge phone beeped, the direct connection to the destroyer's combat Information Center. Townsend picked it up while Straker listened over the bridge speaker.

"I'll never get used to that!" Townsend slammed the phone back into its cradle. "SID just informed me that four UFO's are entering the atmosphere, estimated trajectory has them headed for Diego. I'm going below to fight my ship sir."

"I'll stay up here. I have wanted to see the rail guns in action. I guess the aliens' timing is impeccable." Straker got up, walked to the forward windows and looked at the DDX's main weapon. Two turrets bearing two cannons each. Their 500 pound depleted uranium tipped projectiles would seek their targets leaving the rails at 6,000 meters a second.

"Very well sir," Townsend replied, all business. He went below. Straker felt the DDX surge ahead. It was Pete's vessel, not his and he knew that his presence in the destroyer's Combat Information Center would create doubt among Pete's crew in Townsend's abilities.

"Pipe the action over the speakers sailor," Straker ordered. The enlisted man manning the chart table turned some switches. Straker surveyed the sky while knowing that all of what was about to happen would take place outside of visual range. Human nature he knew, curiosity to see the hairy mammoth about to run him down.

"U-FO's on final descent," The artificial intelligence behind the Space Intruder Detector's voice was decidedly British, a manifestation of its programming thought Straker. The _Dewey's_ main weapon swung into action on the deck beneath Straker.

"SID has control," Townsend's voice announced over the bridge speakers. "Coils energized, slugs are loaded, targets locked—standby."

Straker grabbed a railing. The sound was more like an enormous sizzle than a gun shot. The DDX didn't shudder; instead it continued to cut its way over the blue waves. The slugs superheated and left plumes as they made for their targets. SID announced that the UFO's were attempting to maneuver. Speculation was that their ships did not have artificial gravity and were about as maneuverable as the old space shuttle had been. That was to say, not much capability at all. That gave SHADO, this SHADO a fighting chance. It had given the alternate SHADO a chance.

It had been hard to believe. But after Victor Bergman's breakthroughs on the alien database it had changed things. His father had been unable to discover the identity of the first UFO's crew. But that was because he was looking past into his time. The man with the Cyrillic lettering on him was named Uri Petrov. Records had shown that Petrov had been deeply involved in Russian organized crime. He had met his demise after being implicated in the murder of a prostitute. He had apparently fallen off of a roof while in the custody of the Moscow police in 1993. The female occupant had been harder to identify. Yet she lived today, her name synonymous with the fudge that her small airport kiosks carried.

"Two down!" Townsend announced. "Misses on the other two, coils still charging, capacitors have enough power for one more volley!"

The rail gun had been successful, marginally so, thought Straker. Able to fire two volleys' the guns massive capacitors had to be recharged, that took three minutes. SID's voice announced that the UFO's had descended to below 60,000 feet. The rail guns fired again. This time it was SID's voice that announced that only one of the intruders had been hit. Straker walked over to the bridge's air radar monitor. It was snow until he switched it over to laser tracking. The UFO was inbound to them. He grabbed a hold as _Dewey_ turned sharply while accelerating. The rail guns were new technology. The destroyer's Gatling guns were not. Unfortunately the UFO's particle weapon had a far greater range. It didn't look good for them.

Commander Lin Chao hated this part. Flying his people's most advanced and unique aircraft should be an honor. Yet he remembered German officers from their last great conflict referring to their submarines as iron coffins. So it was that Tsang lu was his composite, hybrid alloy and aluminum coffin. He was pushed back in his seat as his aircraft was ejected from its submarine launch bay. Rocketing out of the sea on external breakaway thrusters, the aircraft, someone had wanted to call it Skydiver, broke through to the surface. Heron was a better name for the ship that came out of the sea. Compressed air blew demineralized water through much of the hot surfaces and then blew away the residual water. Chao was on the start switches in an instant, beating the automation.

Tsang lu's one fatal limitation was that in transitioning from rockets to the aircraft's main engines that changeover wasn't always smooth. Pilots had been killed in fatal stalls under altitudes where they couldn't safely eject. He watched while his airspeed peeked and then started to drop away. Heron's engines were spinning and had ignited but they were not yet at idle. His ship was 300 meters over the ocean's surface. Chao's hand applied pressure on the ejection lever. This was his third launch, having flown two surveillance flights near America's west coast. He had a family and didn't want them to receive the letter explaining his glorious service and death. The engines' temperature climbed.

A new alloy that mimicked the heat resistant qualities of ceramics, the engines' exhaust section soon burned at 4000 degrees centigrade. Chao pushed up the throttles. The airspeed came back. He was shoved down into the seat again as Heron passed twice the speed of sound. He glanced at his heads-up-display, conventional radar was gone. He switched to the Europeans' laser tracking system. The picture and his target became clear. He guided the manta ray shaped aircraft towards the target. Taught to fight the Americans Chao was dubious about this new enemy. His superiors had told him about the aliens and SHADO but he had his doubts. Yet he was a man of duty.

He targeted the remaining alien ship and fired. Chao turned away; the g forces on him were agonizing. That was the only way to launch a missile, the flare from the Russian missile would blind him as well as breaking up the graceful looking craft he flew. The laser tracking system showed the missile, now flying at ten times the speed of sound heading directly at its target. These aliens were advanced, of that Chao had no doubt. But they couldn't defeat conventional physics. The UFO disappeared from his scanner. He throttled back while thinking of his landing. That too was fraught with danger. He slowed the aircraft while looking at the ocean below.

His submarine carrier, receiving data from SHADO's orbiting tracker, sent him a signal. Chao responded and started the spiral down to the calm sea below. That was another pitfall, landing a craft that was launched underwater but tended to capsize in rough seas was another risk in flying Heron. Chao concentrated on the task at hand.

"That's something you don't see every day," Townsend remarked while he and Straker watched Skydiver being pulled back into the sea. He knew the Chinese's name for their remarkable aircraft but he preferred the alternate timeline's name.

"Why did China build that thing Johnny?" his old Annapolis friend asked.

"Politics isn't my business Pete. It never was. And while you wear that uniform it shouldn't be your business. I'm just glad that the Chinese had come up with that. With our new destroyers guarding Diego and Skydiver as a linebacker then we have a fighting chance."

Townsend seemed to relent. Finally he smiled. "Speaking of business, when can I become a movie producer?"

Straker winced when reminded of his new job. "SHADO is to be a secret. Imagine, if anyone finds out, telling about how there is a secret organization with its headquarters at a movie studio. It's good cover."

"Can I look at the house Steve?" Joshua Freeman was an imposing man at an inch over six feet and broad, having inherited his father's build. Even his friend, New York State Policeman Steve Butler backed up somewhat from Freeman.

Butler shook his head. "There are feds all over this. Look, you've helped us out Josh but I'm only warning you. If you slide by me then you might find yourself in the federal lockup at Rome." Butler smiled ruefully.

That meant that he wanted Freeman to do some snooping around probably because the statie had been rebuffed by the US government's law enforcement people. Freeman had, in his capacity as a reporter for the _Montreal Defender_ leaked out information about weapons and narcotics' trafficking between the US and Canada. In return Butler and others, Freeman's information network, told him things that were useful. That was a great help as Freeman was reminded daily by his editor, Morton Gilroy, that the _Defender_ needed big headlines to attract big ad dollars.

"Thanks Steve, I'll keep that in mind." He purposely walked away from the mansion's drive while eyeing possible places that he could stumble into the manor itself.

The police and federal officials were calling this a narco-terrorism home invasion. It was news for Montreal being that the quiet, affluent town of Wilson Park, New York was not far from the US's northern neighbor's border. He strolled nonchalantly around the property, typical of Wilson Park's info-TV rich. Most estates here were owned by cooking and home improvement show hosts. Freeman ducked under the yellow crime scene ribbon after passing between two tall shrubs, a line of which curved around the red brick mansion's southern side.

Josh recognized the smell. He had experienced it in another life in Afghanistan: a burning oil, gasoline, rubber and metal smell, a vehicle that had burned. Further up the drive lay the remains of a Wilson Park Constabulary car. Having seen the carnage from hidden explosive devices it instantly caught his attention that this was different. The back corner of the Ford was completely burned away. The blast looked clean, more as if it had been cut. The damaged car was so oddly intriguing to Freeman that he almost stepped into worse carnage.

Given the painted nails and long blonde hair it had probably been a woman. Nothing remained of her below her midriff. Josh looked for her legs. He had seen soldiers lose limbs that the battlefield medics hadn't been able to find. But this woman had not been blown apart, Freeman could see that. Where were her legs? More disturbing, given that she had been cut in two, where were her organs? Freeman snapped some pictures with his digital camera. A man wearing a dark windbreaker with FBI stenciled on the back turned and saw him, he waved. Freeman breathed a sigh of relief, waved back but also quickly entered the home. It was convenient that his windbreaker was the same color as those worn by American federal agents.

The house was spacious. Marble topped stands and tables held beautiful arrangements of flowers. The pop art pieces and paintings smelled like money. Freeman wished he could really smell currency instead of the odor of this ghoulish butcher shop. Bodies and their parts were everywhere. Camera snapping Freeman recorded as much of the scene as he could. He moved carefully, moving away from the sounds of investigating agents. He entered a long thickly carpeted hallway. A portrait hung at the end of the hall. A gang sign was spray painted over a portrait of a young man riding a horse. Josh remembered the sign and found it strangely out of place. He strode carefully past rooms on either side of him until he stood before the artwork. He snapped a photo.

"Who are you?" The voice was female, had a British accent and carried authority. He turned, his sleeve brushing the vandalized canvas as he did so.

The woman was beautiful, chestnut brown hair covering a pert face and pale brown eyes, and a near perfect figure. That woman also had a cannon pointed at Josh. He raised his hands and informed her—them, she was joined by a lean grizzled man who also had a gun drawn and pointed at Freeman. He told them who he was and where his identification was. The woman asked him to take out his wallet and press cards. Freeman did so slowly and then handed them to the male half of the team. She instructed him to kneel with his hands behind his head while the man accessed his tablet computer, inputting Freeman's information into it no doubt.

"Look, you can cuff me, hands behind my back, you know. It's much more comfortable." Freeman was no stranger to being detained by police. Besides poking his nose too deep as a reporter he had also been arrested on a driving under the influence charge.

The two agents remained impassive. After several minutes Freeman heard the man say that Josh was clean. That struck Freeman as odd because surely his drunken driving conviction was accessible to the agents. They put their weapons away, ordered him to stand and then removed the handcuffs. The woman gave him the obligatory lecture on the seriousness of disturbing a crime scene and his luck that they were going to let him off with just a warning. Freeman decided to see just how far his current good fortune would run.

"I'll be more careful in the future." Careful to not be caught thought Josh. "What happened here agents?"

The man was handling Freeman's camera. "I'll delete them Agent Foster," meaning Josh's photos.

"No need Martin, no doubt they were transmitted via phone to some hard drive." Freeman smiled in a manner that suggested that the woman's scenario is exactly what happened. In fact, the _Defender_ did not pay for such services and on the salary Freeman got he could barely afford his cheap pay-as-you-go phone.

"Just what it looks like Mister Freeman, rich buggers playing with things that got them burned, gangs coming up from the city." She sounded so assured. Move along, nothing to see here was what he heard. He asked them how long ago the murders had occurred as the duo escorted him out of the manor. "A few hours anyway Freeman," she answered. "There you go, pop off now." Freeman was careful to conceal the red paint that had rubbed off onto his sleeve, a few hours indeed. He ducked under the tape while leaving the odd pair behind.

Their badges identified them as American Drug Enforcement Agency wonks but their demeanors were anything but that. It hadn't escaped Freeman that for all the carnage there was a noticeable lack of blood. He passed a Wilson Park policeman arguing with the driver of the flatbed upon which the blasted police car had been loaded. He noted that not only was the car loaded, it had been covered with a tarp.

"Earl, you have a prior for weed. You don't want to add obstructing an officer to that? You won't have this job anymore if that happens." The cop was a bully. Freeman knew that all too many of them were.

"Look…officer," the wrecker driver was trying to be patient in the face of a threat to his job. "That agent, the one with the accent, told me to load up the car and take it to Fort Drum. I'll drive it to the state garage but I don't want some federal charge. Could you talk to that lady for me?"

Interesting, Freeman thought. He was glad to see the driver rebuff the cop. There was no need for that behavior from someone carrying arms. Joshua's dad had retired from the Mounties and had endlessly preached compassion to young Joshua. Joshua remembered how Alec Freeman's police career had been marked by a string of arrests using solid investigation instead of bullying. Why would they take the car to the army base? Freeman supposed that had it really been gang activity then perhaps the bad guys had used a shoulder fired rocket on the police car. That would warrant the US Army's involvement.

A large throng was gathered around the van belonging to the local TV news affiliate. Freeman had done an exposé on that very gang whose paint had rubbed off of their alleged sign onto his sleeve. They had, like many criminal organizations, gone legitimate—mostly. Their leaders, men that wore $2000 suits, wouldn't tolerate something like this massacre. This was something else. Freeman wondered about Islamic terrorists. But that made no sense. He had did his research and the celebrity chef that owned the mansion was a drinker and womanizer, but hardly political. He recognized the network's roving reporter.

"Well if it isn't Jimmy Olsen, cub reporter," she chided him. "Did you remember to bring flashbulbs for your camera?"

"Hello Cammy how's the amateur porn—I mean TV news treating you?"

"Funny you should ask: Paul and I just rented a lovely apartment in midtown." It was a double dig at Freeman. He had worked for this very network as well as sharing a bed with Cammy Edwards. That was when he discovered the unwritten rule of twenty-first century journalism: never ask a politician where the tax money will come from and never ask an environmental group just where their funding was from. "Has the _Defender_ given you your annual bonus of a refrigerator box to live in or cut back to a microwave box?"

"We can spar like this all day long." He smiled. The two had parted on somewhat good terms. Edwards was a climber. Josh wouldn't be surprised to see her on one of the major networks one day. Freeman wanted success but not at the expense of the truth. "Or we can share. I suppose that you never made it into the house?"

"I really believe that the yellow police tape means do not enter. I know that is a quaint notion but not every crime scene is a major cover up Josh." She was right. Freeman knew he tended to be a romantic, odd at just 29 years of age but damnit, someone had to be reliable. Between his parents and the military doing a good job, a good work ethic, was part of who he was. "Did you get in?" she added slyly.

He nodded and told her what he had seen, making sure to delete his speculations. She nodded while her cameraman, Gaucho Hernandez, joined them. Once upon a time it was he and Hernandez doing these kinds of shoots. Of course Josh had actually tried investigating events rather than acting as a spokesman for the police or whomever the story's subject was. Josh guessed that Gaucho missed those days as much as did he.

"My producer will love that! Inner city gangs murdering upscale rich people, it'll nail tonight's ratings!" Cammy was excited. Gilroy would be similarly enthused.

Freeman understood it, but it was not journalism. In all likelihood the _Defender's_ speculation along with Cammy's network would create an atmosphere of distrust and hostility between the folks in these small New York towns and any minorities in their communities. He chatted awhile longer with them. Cammy had nothing and he believed that she wasn't concealing anything. She and Gaucho had spoken to an elderly neighbor. His ex-girlfriend pointed the lady out among the small gathering of curiosity seekers. Freeman traded a few departing jibes with his old companions and then sought out the neighbor.

Her silver hair was from her age but her style of dress belonged in the 80's. She opened up to Freeman especially after finding out that he was from the print media. It was nice to know that newspapers still had a few fans although the woman voiced her preference for what she called New York City's avant-garde papers. Freeman was fine with that. He just wanted to see if there was anything she could add to this mystery.

"We don't watch television so we really didn't know who he was Mr. Freeman." Mrs. Noughle explained. She sounded like a female Franklin Roosevelt. "There were always cars going by and noise coming from over there." She explained that their property lay behind the tree line, pointing in the general direction. Freeman could barely make out a structure behind those trees. He guessed about a thousand yards away. He wondered how the old couple, for Noughle explained that it was just her and her sick husband, could hear even a gun battle from that distance. Well, living in the quiet country Freeman guessed that noise was a relative term.

"We got home late last night. Gary, my husband, was upbeat after his treatment. Alzheimer's you know," she explained pointing at her head. "It takes the best part of a person." Her eyes watered a little. "It was nice to drive down state, eat at a fine restaurant and enjoy time in the car, just like it was ten years ago."

"Did you hear or see anything last night?" he asked. He flipped open a small paper pad. That seemed to please the woman. He had already turned on the small voice recorder in his pocket.

She nodded. "That man was doing some kind of excavation! There was a whining and some lights!" Freeman did his best to calm her. "There were strange lights last night; no doubt the party was moved outdoors," she continued in a calmer voice. "He wanted some obscenely sized pool and earlier this year applied for a permit. Well, the neighborhood association soon put a stop to that! But besides the party I believe he brought in earth moving equipment. There was a whining noise. Then we saw the hole where there was digging last night."

Freeman had seen earthmovers on his drive to the crime scene. The country road that led here crossed over a hill that looked down onto these houses. It seemed absurd that someone would try to conceal the construction of a pool from neighbors, especially when the result would probably be years of litigation. Now, that would be in keeping with the flamboyant celebrity chef's persona, thought Freeman. But it still seemed improbable, what a neighborhood watch group committing mass murder to keep a pool from being built?

"Did you hear the equipment being brought in ma'am?" he asked, nodding toward the mansion.

"That came out here this morning," she answered. "I think the federal investigators requested them. No, there was a hole out there when we got up this morning."

"When did the…whining and lights end?" he asked.

She visibly wilted. "Gary and William—Willy is our Fox Terrier, they were terrified; to tell you truth so was I. We went to other side of our home. Gary had a cottage built for his parents to live in close to the end. We locked ourselves in it. The police car went by, we heard that and then…there was, well, a zing, the whining got louder and then faded away."

Freeman finished writing sensing that Noughle had told him everything that she knew. That and Gary Noughle was walking down the road toward them. The woman cringed. Freeman saw a large wet spot on crotch of the man's pajamas. His heart went out to her. Gary Noughle was babbling and pointing up at the sky. Finally Joshua made out the words "they'll be back" being said over and over. Mrs. Noughle refused his offer of assistance. Seeing that he was done then he made for his car. Freeman got his cell out and called Morty Gilroy, filling his editor in on the story's specifics.

"You should be crossing the border around 2?" Gilroy asked him.

"If the traffic is light, why?" he asked. He knew that another assignment was in the works. The trouble was that _Defender_ paid him a day's low wages whether he did two or twenty stories.

"I want you to stop at Crown World. Do a profile piece on the park's head, some yank named Stracker." Crown World was being billed as Canada's response to the famous American park in Florida. Josh remembered that it not only was a park with rides but also had a movie studio on its land.

"Essy is the entertainment reporter Mort!" Esmeralda Sanchez was a portly young lady who had an incredible talent for getting people to talk. Josh had asked her several times to switch over to hard journalism to no avail.

"She was but I couldn't pay her what the world's foremost Hollywood rag just offered her. By the way you missed a great cake for her going away party." Freeman couldn't argue with that. Everyone on the _Defender's_ staff knew that Sanchez had applied with that magazine.

"Knowing you Mort, you probably rocked a pack of Twinkies out of the snack machine." Josh leaned against his car while the cop that had questioned the wrecker driver drove past. Freeman guessed that the officer would try to make an issue of him merely being seated behind the wheel with his cell phone. "Can't we just call this fellow; have one of the copy people do it?"

Gilroy sighed. "Sonny," he began while Freeman wondered why he used that word when Gilroy was just a mere twelve years older than Josh. "The people pages sell add space. No one wants to hear the truth anymore. They just want to be entertained."

One final protest on Josh's part: "I can't write with Essy's style." That was true.

"Journalism 101 Joshua," Gilroy retorted. Freeman unlocked his car and sat down. "Look, this Stracker is part of America's Hollywood crowd. Maybe he's gay. Bend over a lot and see if he tells you some gem, like an upcoming movie or some kind of ride at the park. The point is: just tell a story that makes some working mom believe that there's more out there than long hours and dirty diapers."

Freeman agreed. He had no choice. Some warehouses were hiring where he could make more money but journalism was his passion. Unfortunately at this stage of his career it paid very little. Gilroy gave him details on where to report. Josh put his car in gear and made for the interstate while wondering what vacuous questions he could ask this executive.


	5. Chapter 5

"Can I look at the house Steve?" Joshua Freeman was an imposing man at an inch over six feet and broad, having inherited his father's build. Even his friend, New York State Policeman Steve Butler backed up somewhat from Freeman.

Butler shook his head. "There are feds all over this. Look, you've helped us out Josh but I'm only warning you. If you slide by me then you might find yourself in the federal lockup at Rome." Butler smiled ruefully.

That meant that he wanted Freeman to do some snooping around probably because the statie had been rebuffed by the US government's law enforcement people. Freeman had, in his capacity as a reporter for the _Montreal Defender_ leaked out information about weapons and narcotics' trafficking between the US and Canada. In return Butler and others, Freeman's information network, told him things that were useful. That was a great help as Freeman was reminded daily by his editor, Morton Gilroy, that the _Defender_ needed big headlines to attract big ad dollars.

"Thanks Steve, I'll keep that in mind." He purposely walked away from the mansion's drive while eyeing possible places that he could stumble into the manor itself.

The police and federal officials were calling this a narco-terrorism home invasion. It was news for Montreal being that the quiet, affluent town of Wilson Park, New York was not far from the US's northern neighbor's border. He strolled nonchalantly around the property, typical of Wilson Park's info-TV rich. Most estates here were owned by cooking and home improvement show hosts. Freeman ducked under the yellow crime scene ribbon after passing between two tall shrubs, a line of which curved around the red brick mansion's southern side.

Josh recognized the smell. He had experienced it in another life in Afghanistan: a burning oil, gasoline, rubber and metal smell, a vehicle that had burned. Further up the drive lay the remains of a Wilson Park Constabulary car. Having seen the carnage from hidden explosive devices it instantly caught his attention that this was different. The back corner of the Ford was completely burned away. The blast looked clean, more as if it had been cut. The damaged car was so oddly intriguing to Freeman that he almost stepped into worse carnage.

Given the painted nails and long blonde hair it had probably been a woman. Nothing remained of her below her midriff. Josh looked for her legs. He had seen soldiers lose limbs that the battlefield medics hadn't been able to find. But this woman had not been blown apart, Freeman could see that. Where were her legs? More disturbing, given that she had been cut in two, where were her organs? Freeman snapped some pictures with his digital camera. A man wearing a dark windbreaker with FBI stenciled on the back turned and saw him, he waved. Freeman breathed a sigh of relief, waved back but also quickly entered the home. It was convenient that his windbreaker was the same color as those worn by American federal agents.

The house was spacious. Marble topped stands and tables held beautiful arrangements of flowers. The pop art pieces and paintings smelled like money. Freeman wished he could really smell currency instead of the odor of this ghoulish butcher shop. Bodies and their parts were everywhere. Camera snapping Freeman recorded as much of the scene as he could. He moved carefully, moving away from the sounds of investigating agents. He entered a long thickly carpeted hallway. A portrait hung at the end of the hall. A gang sign was spray painted over a portrait of a young man riding a horse. Josh remembered the sign and found it strangely out of place. He strode carefully past rooms on either side of him until he stood before the artwork. He snapped a photo.

"Who are you?" The voice was female, had a British accent and carried authority. He turned, his sleeve brushing the vandalized canvas as he did so.

The woman was beautiful, chestnut brown hair covering a pert face and pale brown eyes, and a near perfect figure. That woman also had a cannon pointed at Josh. He raised his hands and informed her—them, she was joined by a lean grizzled man who also had a gun drawn and pointed at Freeman. He told them who he was and where his identification was. The woman asked him to take out his wallet and press cards. Freeman did so slowly and then handed them to the male half of the team. She instructed him to kneel with his hands behind his head while the man accessed his tablet computer, inputting Freeman's information into it no doubt.

"Look, you can cuff me, hands behind my back, you know. It's much more comfortable." Freeman was no stranger to being detained by police. Besides poking his nose too deep as a reporter he had also been arrested on a driving under the influence charge.

The two agents remained impassive. After several minutes Freeman heard the man say that Josh was clean. That struck Freeman as odd because surely his drunken driving conviction was accessible to the agents. They put their weapons away, ordered him to stand and then removed the handcuffs. The woman gave him the obligatory lecture on the seriousness of disturbing a crime scene and his luck that they were going to let him off with just a warning. Freeman decided to see just how far his current good fortune would run.

"I'll be more careful in the future." Careful to not be caught thought Josh. "What happened here agents?"

The man was handling Freeman's camera. "I'll delete them Agent Foster," meaning Josh's photos.

"No need Martin, no doubt they were transmitted via phone to some hard drive." Freeman smiled in a manner that suggested that the woman's scenario is exactly what happened. In fact, the _Defender_ did not pay for such services and on the salary Freeman got he could barely afford his cheap pay-as-you-go phone.

"Just what it looks like Mister Freeman, rich buggers playing with things that got them burned, gangs coming up from the city." She sounded so assured. Move along, nothing to see here was what he heard. He asked them how long ago the murders had occurred as the duo escorted him out of the manor. "A few hours anyway Freeman," she answered. "There you go, pop off now." Freeman was careful to conceal the red paint that had rubbed off onto his sleeve, a few hours indeed. He ducked under the tape while leaving the odd pair behind.

Their badges identified them as American Drug Enforcement Agency wonks but their demeanors were anything but that. It hadn't escaped Freeman that for all the carnage there was a noticeable lack of blood. He passed a Wilson Park policeman arguing with the driver of the flatbed upon which the blasted police car had been loaded. He noted that not only was the car loaded, it had been covered with a tarp.

"Earl, you have a prior for weed. You don't want to add obstructing an officer to that? You won't have this job anymore if that happens." The cop was a bully. Freeman knew that all too many of them were.

"Look…officer," the wrecker driver was trying to be patient in the face of a threat to his job. "That agent, the one with the accent, told me to load up the car and take it to Fort Drum. I'll drive it to the state garage but I don't want some federal charge. Could you talk to that lady for me?"

Interesting, Freeman thought. He was glad to see the driver rebuff the cop. There was no need for that behavior from someone carrying arms. Joshua's dad had retired from the Mounties and had endlessly preached compassion to young Joshua. Joshua remembered how Alec Freeman's police career had been marked by a string of arrests using solid investigation instead of bullying. Why would they take the car to the army base? Freeman supposed that had it really been gang activity then perhaps the bad guys had used a shoulder fired rocket on the police car. That would warrant the US Army's involvement.

A large throng was gathered around the van belonging to the local TV news affiliate. Freeman had done an exposé on that very gang whose paint had rubbed off of their alleged sign onto his sleeve. They had, like many criminal organizations, gone legitimate—mostly. Their leaders, men that wore $2000 suits, wouldn't tolerate something like this massacre. This was something else. Freeman wondered about Islamic terrorists. But that made no sense. He had did his research and the celebrity chef that owned the mansion was a drinker and womanizer, but hardly political. He recognized the network's roving reporter.

"Well if it isn't Jimmy Olsen, cub reporter," she chided him. "Did you remember to bring flashbulbs for your camera?"

"Hello Cammy how's the amateur porn—I mean TV news treating you?"

"Funny you should ask: Paul and I just rented a lovely apartment in midtown." It was a double dig at Freeman. He had worked for this very network as well as sharing a bed with Cammy Edwards. That was when he discovered the unwritten rule of twenty-first century journalism: never ask a politician where the tax money will come from and never ask an environmental group just where their funding was from. "Has the _Defender_ given you your annual bonus of a refrigerator box to live in or cut back to a microwave box?"

"We can spar like this all day long." He smiled. The two had parted on somewhat good terms. Edwards was a climber. Josh wouldn't be surprised to see her on one of the major networks one day. Freeman wanted success but not at the expense of the truth. "Or we can share. I suppose that you never made it into the house?"

"I really believe that the yellow police tape means do not enter. I know that is a quaint notion but not every crime scene is a major cover up Josh." She was right. Freeman knew he tended to be a romantic, odd at just 29 years of age but damnit, someone had to be reliable. Between his parents and the military doing a good job, a good work ethic, was part of who he was. "Did you get in?" she added slyly.

He nodded and told her what he had seen, making sure to delete his speculations. She nodded while her cameraman, Gaucho Hernandez, joined them. Once upon a time it was he and Hernandez doing these kinds of shoots. Of course Josh had actually tried investigating events rather than acting as a spokesman for the police or whomever the story's subject was. Josh guessed that Gaucho missed those days as much as did he.

"My producer will love that! Inner city gangs murdering upscale rich people, it'll nail tonight's ratings!" Cammy was excited. Gilroy would be similarly enthused.

Freeman understood it, but it was not journalism. In all likelihood the _Defender's_ speculation along with Cammy's network would create an atmosphere of distrust and hostility between the folks in these small New York towns and any minorities in their communities. He chatted awhile longer with them. Cammy had nothing and he believed that she wasn't concealing anything. She and Gaucho had spoken to an elderly neighbor. His ex-girlfriend pointed the lady out among the small gathering of curiosity seekers. Freeman traded a few departing jibes with his old companions and then sought out the neighbor.

Her silver hair was from her age but her style of dress belonged in the 80's. She opened up to Freeman especially after finding out that he was from the print media. It was nice to know that newspapers still had a few fans although the woman voiced her preference for what she called New York City's avant-garde papers. Freeman was fine with that. He just wanted to see if there was anything she could add to this mystery.

"We don't watch television so we really didn't know who he was Mr. Freeman." Mrs. Noughle explained. She sounded like a female Franklin Roosevelt. "There were always cars going by and noise coming from over there." She explained that their property lay behind the tree line, pointing in the general direction. Freeman could barely make out a structure behind those trees. He guessed about a thousand yards away. He wondered how the old couple, for Noughle explained that it was just her and her sick husband, could hear even a gun battle from that distance. Well, living in the quiet country Freeman guessed that noise was a relative term.

"We got home late last night. Gary, my husband, was upbeat after his treatment. Alzheimer's you know," she explained pointing at her head. "It takes the best part of a person." Her eyes watered a little. "It was nice to drive down state, eat at a fine restaurant and enjoy time in the car, just like it was ten years ago."

"Did you hear or see anything last night?" he asked. He flipped open a small paper pad. That seemed to please the woman. He had already turned on the small voice recorder in his pocket.

She nodded. "That man was doing some kind of excavation! There was a whining and some lights!" Freeman did his best to calm her. "There were strange lights last night; no doubt the party was moved outdoors," she continued in a calmer voice. "He wanted some obscenely sized pool and earlier this year applied for a permit. Well, the neighborhood association soon put a stop to that! But besides the party I believe he brought in earth moving equipment. There was a whining noise. Then we saw the hole where there was digging last night."

Freeman had seen earthmovers on his drive to the crime scene. The country road that led here crossed over a hill that looked down onto these houses. It seemed absurd that someone would try to conceal the construction of a pool from neighbors, especially when the result would probably be years of litigation. Now, that would be in keeping with the flamboyant celebrity chef's persona, thought Freeman. But it still seemed improbable, what a neighborhood watch group committing mass murder to keep a pool from being built?

"Did you hear the equipment being brought in ma'am?" he asked, nodding toward the mansion.

"That came out here this morning," she answered. "I think the federal investigators requested them. No, there was a hole out there when we got up this morning."

"When did the…whining and lights end?" he asked.

She visibly wilted. "Gary and William—Willy is our Fox Terrier, they were terrified; to tell you truth so was I. We went to other side of our home. Gary had a cottage built for his parents to live in close to the end. We locked ourselves in it. The police car went by, we heard that and then…there was, well, a zing, the whining got louder and then faded away."

Freeman finished writing sensing that Noughle had told him everything that she knew. That and Gary Noughle was walking down the road toward them. The woman cringed. Freeman saw a large wet spot on crotch of the man's pajamas. His heart went out to her. Gary Noughle was babbling and pointing up at the sky. Finally Joshua made out the words "they'll be back" being said over and over. Mrs. Noughle refused his offer of assistance. Seeing that he was done then he made for his car. Freeman got his cell out and called Morty Gilroy, filling his editor in on the story's specifics.

"You should be crossing the border around 2?" Gilroy asked him.

"If the traffic is light, why?" he asked. He knew that another assignment was in the works. The trouble was that _Defender_ paid him a day's low wages whether he did two or twenty stories.

"I want you to stop at Crown World. Do a profile piece on the park's head, some yank named Stracker." Crown World was being billed as Canada's response to the famous American park in Florida. Josh remembered that it not only was a park with rides but also had a movie studio on its land.

"Essy is the entertainment reporter Mort!" Esmeralda Sanchez was a portly young lady who had an incredible talent for getting people to talk. Josh had asked her several times to switch over to hard journalism to no avail.

"She was but I couldn't pay her what the world's foremost Hollywood rag just offered her. By the way you missed a great cake for her going away party." Freeman couldn't argue with that. Everyone on the _Defender's_ staff knew that Sanchez had applied with that magazine.

"Knowing you Mort, you probably rocked a pack of Twinkies out of the snack machine." Josh leaned against his car while the cop that had questioned the wrecker driver drove past. Freeman guessed that the officer would try to make an issue of him merely being seated behind the wheel with his cell phone. "Can't we just call this fellow; have one of the copy people do it?"

Gilroy sighed. "Sonny," he began while Freeman wondered why he used that word when Gilroy was just a mere twelve years older than Josh. "The people pages sell add space. No one wants to hear the truth anymore. They just want to be entertained."

One final protest on Josh's part: "I can't write with Essy's style." That was true.

"Journalism 101 Joshua," Gilroy retorted. Freeman unlocked his car and sat down. "Look, this Stracker is part of America's Hollywood crowd. Maybe he's gay. Bend over a lot and see if he tells you some gem, like an upcoming movie or some kind of ride at the park. The point is: just tell a story that makes some working mom believe that there's more out there than long hours and dirty diapers."

Freeman agreed. He had no choice. Some warehouses were hiring where he could make more money but journalism was his passion. Unfortunately at this stage of his career it paid very little. Gilroy gave him details on where to report. Josh put his car in gear and made for the interstate while wondering what vacuous questions he could ask this executive.

Marcia Carlson was with him. She too had been on the ship. Larry Parker remembered that his will had slipped away after they had injected him. He had been frightened but had complied while they had put him in that suit, put a helmet on his head and filled it with liquid. He no longer had a choice as he had choked on the revolting green fluid. Then he had started breathing it. He understood that the liquid was a medium that would create changes in his body. He had watched Marcia go through the same thing, knowing that she too had no choice but to obey. He had retched up the horrible stuff after they had pumped out the liquid.

They had been released with a task to accomplish. They were careful to cut across country, leaving their cars at the site of the former party. Parker's legs grew agonizingly tired, him being used to New York's public transportation. Yet they had to obtain a car. It was several hours past dawn as the duo emerged from the shadows of a tree line, their clothes torn and mud covered. The Alpine, an expensive store that catered to the Adirondack's wealthy weekenders was across the road. He nodded at Marcia and then at a Volvo, its rear wheels muddied, parked in the market's outer lot. They crossed the two lane road Marcia took the driver's side while he grabbed the handle of the passenger side door. Together they sensed the car's electronic lock and then caused it to unlock.

Parker opened the luxury car's door only to be confronted by an angry Doberman. He recalled faintly, having liked dogs as he grabbed the animal's collar and flung it out of the vehicle and across the highway. It squealed in terror and pain. Marcia had the car started and the steering lock broken. She was already standing on the accelerator as he got in beside her. The door slammed shut as the tires threw up dust and gravel.

"They might be looking for us," Marcia told him.

He nodded. "We'll go back to our apartment in Montreal. We can go there and plan our next move." Marcia agreed with him. It was convenient that they were both married, just not to each other. Together they shared expenses for their secret Montreal love nest. They both fell silent.

Getting to Diego Garcia would be hard. Carlson was an actress of minor note, perhaps they could exploit that. Parker had his doubts. Yet the desire to get to the launch site of the new moon mission was so intense that left with no other means, Larry knew that he would try to swim to that place. He settled back into the car's plush leather seats. When they spoke it was to plan how to get across the world and destroy the moon rocket before its launch in 60 days.

Johnny Straker got out of his Jeep and zipped up his jacket. It was late September and already there had been a moderate snow fall. He liked his suburban Montreal house, almost wishing that this really was his civilian home. Elena was comfortable but skeptical about his new career. Emilio and Marie were excited, seeing the summer as one long amusement park ride. He was fully engaged with SHADO but had also discovered that he enjoyed his cover role as movie slash park director. His idea, actually his daughter's, for a funny animated movie about a flea circus had made Crown a hefty profit.

He went in the house, looking three floors up to their suite. Making money for Crown had also assuaged his unease over the size of this house. It reminded Straker of the money into which his mother had married. Howard Johannsen had tried being a father and although he saw to it that young Johnny had no material wants he was otherwise cold and distant. Straker held felt like an accessory to the trophy that his mother was. Perhaps that is why he had always felt more at home in the small military housing units in which he and Elena had spent most of their adult lives. He called for her, his voice echoing in the large entryway.

"In the study, honey," she answered. Elena Straker emerged from her office carrying a smart looking leather binder. Despite his significant salary increase since becoming a faux movie studio executive she still wanted to work. A local real estate company had hired her. Elena had made a tidy sum doing that profession throughout their many duty stations. She was leafing through the binder as she met him and kissed him. "How's the movie business?"

"More park than movie division," he answered. "I've got a team together for _Star Guard the new Beginning_. The studio will begin work on that next week. Today was mostly approving the new roller coaster. We're still deciding between calling it the Widow Maker, Electric Eel or Death Plunge." He screwed up his face. "I did an interview with a local paper."

His name was Joshua Freeman and he had questioned Straker thoroughly. Most of the entertainment reporters he had dealt with thus far had been easily distracted, not this Freeman. Freeman had specifically keyed in on Straker's former career wondering openly how he gone from US Navy pilot to a movie studio executive. The reporter had seemed skeptical when Johnny had mentioned his degree in mechanical engineering even though he had used some of the schooling for developing rides. Straker had to delay and use a large amount of bull excrement to make it through the interview. Yet he had sensed Freeman's suspicion. He was glad when the interview had ended as Freeman had asked him about Crown's financial sources.

"It didn't go well I take it?" she asked. He nodded. "Well I suppose things happen in your business, after all you should know."

He seized her arm gently. "Elena, they needed someone with a loud voice to appear competent." He sighed. "Would you rather I was still in the Navy, on call or out flying missions?"

She chuckled, the doubt pushed back yet he knew it was still there. "I guess it is the sudden change. The kids think that it is great. My father wants to discuss…" she touched a painted finger nail to her smiling lips, "creative ideas for your next big project."

Straker took his turn to chuckle. "I'm ready whenever they want to come up." Straker couldn't imagine Ernesto Morales discussing scenes and story lines but then again the man's jet engine designs were revolutionary. But it would be good for Elena's parents to visit, take her mind off of his absences.

"They want to come up for our annual Cuban Christmas." She moved to stand beside him. They kissed. She tousled his hair. "You look like a blonde Beatle. You need to get it cut or go long with it."

"What's the latest Hollywood trend?" he asked.

She scowled. "You got this position, you should know."

"I've done well here Elena. You know what they say about the gift horse?" He kissed her. "It's true that I'm not _Hollywood_ but I must have impressed someone when that time I was assigned as the Navy's liaison for that movie company. What else would I be doing here? How could we afford this big house?"

"I'm sorry Johnny," she shook her head as she answered. "This whole thing…doesn't feel right. It hasn't since you announced that you were leaving the navy for this. Some of those calls at all hours, it's worse than the navy. And that Miss Foster…"

"What you think I'm having an affair?" The children were out at friends. They had made those fast; probably being former military brats had helped that.

"No, it's not that. But that Foster, she's more like…like a hit woman or gangster, or some kind of exterminator. She scares me and I just don't see her in the movie business…anymore than I see you in it." Marisol Foster had been introduced to Elena as a studio do-girl, one who got things done.

He would have to do damage control and certainly before the launch of Prometheus. Straker would be the actual mission commander of that ship. He knew as a commander that he should stay behind but SHADO's success, the human race's continued survival counted on the success of the mission. He needed to be on it. He would be gone for three weeks and had plans including a movie shoot in Iran, to explain his absence. If he didn't return then it was only a matter of time before the DDX's, SID and the Skydivers would fall before the aliens. The infection rate had gone up to eight percent according to Foster. That too was more bad news.

"We are here honey. I'm trying to do my best." He sighed. "I don't want to quarrel. Do you want me to quit?" What if she said yes?

"I have doubts I'm sorry." She sighed and put down her binder. "I'm showing my first house tomorrow. It'll be interesting to see if I can make a sale. I'll make half of your navy check out of my cut. I'm a little bit afraid. This is big time." He could tell that she had changed the subject to avoid an unnecessary argument. She had suspicions because she was smart but could not put the puzzle together. How could anyone he wondered.

"You'll do fine. You always did." He hugged her to him.

She grunted and pushed away from him. "I forgot! I got a call from Maggie Donnelly."

"Maggie and Glen! I hope all is well?" Straker was thrilled to hear news of his old Top Gun instructor. Glen Donnelly was a hardnosed SOB but he had taken a young lieutenant under his tutelage and made a big impression on him. The look on his wife's face told him that things weren't well.

Elena was shaking her head. "Glen…they found, NCIS found, they found kiddie porn on his PC." Her eyes filled with tears. She had become good friends with Maggie Donnelly, a sage of advice concerning the survival of a military spouse. He was aghast. "They are in Jacksonville. Glen was going to finish out his career there." Straker had known that. He couldn't believe the new revelation about his old teacher.

Nothing in Donnelly's background, in his knowledge and friendship with the man had indicated anything like this. But Jacksonville caught his attention. A UFO action had occurred off of the Florida coast less than three months after his assumption as SHADO's commander. Did that mean anything? Humans hid some dark and repulsive things he knew but had Donnelly hidden something like this from Johnny? He asked his wife for more details.

Donnelly's demise had come just two weeks ago. Maggie had told Elena that her husband had become involved in something secretive, something more mysterious than usual naval operations. She had assumed it was that: navy business, until NCIS had come a calling. Elena explained that Maggie, her trust broken, had sent Glen packing. Straker was recalling details of the UFO incident. A squadron commander had become aware of UFO activity after naval personnel under his command had recovered evidence as well as several sailors acting erratically after the incident. Elena sensed that he was troubled.

"Do you have Maggie's number? May I call her?" he asked. Elena nodded, sensing his need for answers. Straker was torn. Was his old teacher a villain or had Foster discredited him?

"Just let's go. You're not jealous are you Josh?" Helen Campbell's question was pointed. No, he wasn't jealous of her ex boyfriend Ravi Sharma. But Josh was living in Helen's apartment, more or less being supported by her. Freeman knew that Sharma could and had done a far better job of supporting her.

"No, it's just that, what am I going to say? Ravi wants to talk about microbiology. Wouldn't someone from the ministry be better than me?" He wasn't jealous, he just felt inferior. Perhaps in part he wanted her to go to Ravi's apartment to see if anything was still there.

Reluctantly he got out of his car, moving quickly to her side to open the door. His father and then the military had imbued him with old styled manners. That and this section of Montreal was not always safe after nine. He was also anxious to reexamine the story about Wilson Park. A couple passing through there had their car stolen, their pet injured and one of the culprits was supposed to have looked like B-movie sensation Marcia Carlson. Carlson was supposed to have been one of Chef Del Signore's former bed buddies. Had Carlson and the unidentified male with her been to the fatal party? He yawned soon after so did she as they walked past the older slightly shady looking brownstones.

"Rough day?" they asked in unison causing both to snicker.

She told him that Canada's health care system was as overworked and backlogged as ever while he related the details of his interview with John Straker. Both complained, as couples do, of their everyday work troubles. Both laughed over things that they knew of in each other's life but had never really seen. Yet Helen seemed to drill in on a detail that had plagued Freeman.

"How does a person go from US Army pilot to heading up a major theme park and movie studio?" Her incredulity was apparent.

They buzzed Ravi's apartment. The intercom emitted his voice and after a short exchange he buzzed them into the main floor hallway. "Not only that, this Crown got a lot of money invested in it from US, Chinese and Russian weapons manufacturers." He knew that wasn't unusual for those companies to put seed money into many concerns.

They climbed three flights to Ravi's floor. "Sounds like a mystery." She stopped and hugged him. She touched him in a way that left little to imagine what she wanted. "I'm with you Josh. I love you, okay?"

"Sure babe," he answered and then knocked. He looked down the halls hardwood floors, dark and overdue to be refinished. The sweet pungent smell of Indian food wafted out from under Ravi's door.

"Come in my friends!" Ravi Sharma looked more like his descendants were from Italy rather than India. He ushered them in. They were soon sitting and eating, talking of old times. Freeman did not feel threatened by Sharma yet he still felt inadequate. Even Ravi's new girlfriend should have eased his feelings but she didn't. Laura George was a pretty girl from Montreal's upper crust. After eating the two couples sat down for some Hookah smoking. They were thoroughly relaxed when Sharma launched into his story.

"I've been gathering samples from the clinic for my own research." Freeman knew that Ravi was finishing a degree in microbiology. His use of patient's blood samples from his job at one of Canada's taxpayer subsidized clinics wasn't exactly ethical. But Freeman dismissed any misgivings because whatever his feelings about his inadequacies as a man, he knew unquestioningly that Ravi Sharma could only produce good. Why else would Helen have dated him? Two hours and his head spinning from refined North Carolina tobacco and more biology than a human being should know Freeman thought that he was connecting the dots of Ravi's story.

"So, there is a virus, dormant in maybe five percent of the samples you've…acquired. What exactly is it?" Freeman's journalistic instincts took over.

"I don't know that!" Sharma wore thick black rimmed glasses that lent him an air of seriousness that Freeman knew he really didn't have—except on rare occasions, like now. "What I do know is that viruses don't persist, not like this. I've gone back to some of our regulars, older people and street people. I've taken samples for the past three years. If they had it, they still do."

"Then it's harmless," Freeman concluded after two his two hours of impromptu education concerning microbes.

"Why is it still there? When I sent some findings to a friend in America's CDC she told me to keep my work to myself, the same here in our country. Josh you know people. What is this thing? If it's benign as you said then why not report it?"

Laura George backed up Ravi's tale. She worked in the administrative section of Canada's massive health agency and had tried asking questions through her channels only to have her civil service job threatened. Freeman was still confused as to what this virus did. He had supposed that the body contained many dormant organisms. Weren't inoculations for many diseases dead viruses?

"No, there is more here." Sharma got up and paced. "This virus is active. It's like it is waiting for something. He looked at Laura's brown eyes. "Tell them."

George seemed hesitant. Her face contorted in confusion. She nodded, more as if to herself than to them. "People have been doing strange things," she started, "more than the norm!" She saw his look of doubt. "I read a report about two women receiving a continuous high voltage shock, many times over what a Yank electric chair would need to kill a human being. It was the Alberta power substation incident."

Freeman nodded, trying to hide his surprise. He hadn't investigated that accident. Official sources had ruled it a tanker truck of gasoline where the driver had lost control and skidded into the station, causing a massive blackout over much of the Grand Prairie for several hours. George told of a recording recovered from the station's monitoring system that had shown two women ripping out electrical cables surviving things that flesh had no right to survive. He asked her if she had seen the video to which she answered no. He was skeptical. Second hand information had no credibility.

"I have it on good authority," George asserted. "Tell him Ravi."

"The virus of which I spoke, a badly burned body was brought into the morgue, flown in actually." Freeman could see his friend's mind's eye recalling what he was describing. He knew that his friend was a part time worker at the Federal epidemiology center. Many autopsies were done there Freeman knew. "The virus of which I spoke was active in this body. The body was of a woman flown in from Alberta. We were told that she was a power station worker. But then a woman showed up. She said that she was an officer with the RCMP, odd she had an English accent."

"What?" Freeman's one word query was explosive.

"Her accent, I guess she had a Brit parent. Very nice looking woman." Sharma's remark drew a sharp look of rebuke from George. "I—I mean she looked very sharp!" his friend's discomfiture gave them all a laugh. When they had settled down, Sharma assuring his lady friend that she looked much better than the RCMP officer, he continued.

"She had a warrant. She took the body and my findings." Ravi shook his head. "This virus was active. I strongly believe that woman was from the power substation. The burns were unbelievable and yet somehow her flesh, muscles were still…functional. Severe burns like that should have destroyed nerves and yet when Doctor Marstellar used an electric probe he got reactions." Sharma's face became a mask of horror. "It was like the body had been altered and driven from within."

"By some mystery virus?" he asked. Freeman's question made Sharma stand.

"I don't know! But you are good at finding out about these things Josh…please." He wrung his brown hands. "You claim that you are always looking for the big story. This could be it!"

Freeman looked up at his old friend and then at Laura George. They believed what they were saying but after some experience at interviewing witnesses Josh understood that a person could be one hundred percent sure of something they had seen and yet are totally wrong. He also remembered the American Federal agent he had met earlier this day; an attractive woman with a British accent. It had to be a coincidence and yet Freeman's instincts were kicking into gear. He agreed to start an investigation for Sharma.

"Man, they destroyed my station!" Calvin Henry was angry while he looked at the wreck of the engineer's booth where the transmissions came together for Henry's classic rock FM station. A fit man in his fifties with a head full of iron gray hair Henry shook his head sadly. "Ellen Mason, my engineer wasn't hurt badly but she didn't deserve what happened to her."

Freeman looked at the hole in the sound booth's wall made by Mason's passage through it. She was lucky to have gotten only a broken arm and some bruises. He agreed: no one deserved being thrown through a wall. He questioned the station's owner further, glad that he had invested in a police scanner with his meager earnings. He had wanted to start on Sharma's story but his contacts were a few months old and several had moved along in their lives. Fortune and a police call had taken him to this crime scene, a story that Gilroy would be glad to have he guessed.

"Who were they? Did your engineer or DJ see any of them?" His recorder was on while Josh surveyed the damage. "Did they say anything?"

Henry shook his head. "Ellen caught the worst of it. My DJ, Rick Harvey bolted out. He thinks everything is a terrorist attack." Henry's face assumed a look of curiosity. "Ellen said they were quiet—creepy quiet is how she put it. Come on, the police are on the way but I bet you know your way around a crime scene."

He followed Henry into the station's transmission booth while asking why the engineer's equipment which he had photographed was not only vandalized but appeared in places to have been rewired. Freeman recalled a Canadian Forces radio tech who had worked on the communications' gear that Freeman's unit had used in Afghanistan. He had gotten the soldiers several choice channels from satellite and he had left the equipment much like the engineer's gear in this place looked now. He asked about that.

"Yes, I started in the booth but I got into management in the 90's. This stuff isn't beyond me but it's been awhile. But I have no idea who they were trying to talk to. They went into the booth and transmitted garbage. There was stuff on the board but the audio came out to be squeals and whistles. But you know, there…it's almost like a pattern was there." Henry shook his head. "Probably my imagination," he muttered.

"What did they look like?" Freeman heard the official sounds of officers from the hallway.

Henry chuckled. "The fellow was tall, thin, one of those guys whose legs look about as thick as your arm. The girl though," he paused and looked at Josh. "I don't suppose that you are a SciFi fan?"

"A little," he answered.

"I like the B-moves, there was one, really stupid…._Ice Roaches from Venus_…there was a blonde, Carl, Carlson," the station owner mused.

"Marcia Carlson?" he asked. Freeman looked down the hallway and caught sight of the brunette. "Do you have a bathroom?" He had always been quick witted and it would hopefully save him.

"Well over there," said Henry, pointing at a door. Freeman turned and headed that way grabbing at his stomach feigning illness. He went inside seeing a window through which he could escape. He struggled briefly with that finally opening it. An alley beckoned to him. He turned back to the door and looked through where he had left it cracked. It was the woman from the murderous party, the American federal agent. That same man was with her. Freeman saw and heard her present herself as an RCMP officer. He knew better than to hang around any longer. He climbed through the window landing hard on his right ankle but not twisting it. He made quickly for his car.


	6. Chapter 6

"Miss Ealand, tell Colonel Foster that I'd like to meet with her in the chart room." Straker had just decisively settled a dispute between two directors and then dealt with union camera crews making what he hoped was a judicious settlement for them.

"She's been delayed commander," Ealand informed him. Straker was glad to have Ealand, a spy from Britain's old school she had after her share of field work gone into maintaining databases cross referencing sources and informers. Ealand was a prim older woman who looked a decade younger than her age of 55. More aide then secretary she had become his right arm. That was especially true as Straker had little experience with human intelligence gathering, something which Foster and Ealand were both experts at.

"Skydiver 6 has been repaired?" he asked.

Ealand nodded. "Her reactor's cooling was restored two hours ago and she is underway. She'll be back to patrol for Prometheus in 45 minutes."

"No UFO activity since last week's incursion commander." Lieutenant Mike Davis was one of Straker's choices. He had become acquainted with Davis while the two of them had been stationed in Afghanistan. He was sharp and obviously in command of SHADO's surveillance section.

Straker surveyed the large chamber, 400 feet below the surface its secret construction was a miracle. SHADO was a bomb proof honeycomb of labs, medical bays and this command and control center. Straker looked up at a three dimensional world map, far more detailed than even that belonging to the US Air force's Space Command. The skies were clear, no UFO's. A week was a long time to go without a peep from the aliens. Straker was concerned.

"Do you have that file for me Miss Ealand?" he asked while she simultaneously put a folder into his hands. He nodded and thanked her and then after checking the current status of his defenses with his various operators he headed for the chart room, reading as he went.

His old friend Glen Donnelly had indeed been involved with an alien incursion. He had been leading a training flight on that day. Like Roy Jones, Donnelly's flight had been attacked by a UFO. Unlike the late Jones' Donnelly had used his planes, bracketing the UFO hitting it several times and blowing it out of the sky. Colonel Foster, she had been assigned a military rank within SHADO, had assigned Agent Czaplicki to the case. He had centered on Donnelly who, according to the agent had been reluctant to forget what he had seen. The report trailed off into a successful resolution of the whole affair. Straker was not an intelligence agent but who knew garbage when he saw it and this report reeked of it.

The door to the chart room slid open as its sensor picked up the chip embedded in his studio badge. The lights came on. He reviewed the status of Prometheus. Between the Skydivers and the DDX's cruising the Indian Ocean it seemed that man's second lunar shot might just have a chance. Straker would be a part of that mission. He knew that he had accepted responsibility for SHADO's mission but he couldn't help but to be ecstatic over realizing his dreams of going into space. He looked again at the Jacksonville case file wondering how he would proceed with it against Foster. Straker understood that she had command on the ground. He had been good with that, having relied on his intelligence officers for human intelligence. Yet he was uneasy. The door opened.

"Good day commander," she chimed. She was genial if nothing else.

"Good day colonel." He put the file down as he spoke watching as her eyes tracked that item. "How is Rubicon going?" Straker leaned over the main chart table examining the 3-D map of the world. The presentation was on a large enough scale so that Straker could pick out small countries and individual counties from his country. Many circles were inscribed in key locations.

"With SHADO strength being brought up and the addition of SID we hope to channel some UFO's into a landing near to one of the selected areas. The new mobiles have the equipment to engage them but we hope to capture rather than to destroy."

Straker nodded. "The UFO's have always selected secluded landing sites near small towns. So far there is nothing to suggest a change to that. Being there ahead of them perhaps will allow us to capture an alien ship."

"And their occupants," she added. "You sound like you plan to participate?"

"I'm getting thick around the middle Foster." He patted his firm stomach. "I'd like to play."

"Excuse me sir but there are multiple possible landing sites." Her skepticism was apparent on her face. "Why bother when it is likely that you won't be on the team?"

"I'm taking one of the Chinese's land based Skydivers up for a spin colonel." He was buoyant as he spoke. "That means that if SID gets it right I can make it half way around the world before the aliens get earth dust on their suits."

She nodded seeming to patronize him. "Do as you will, then, best of luck."

"If it doesn't pan out I'll get some flying time in. That will be useful when I go up with Prometheus." He would fly with her but publically her skipper was diminutive Japanese women who had a will and temper the equal of Straker's. He retrieved the report and waved it at her. "Tell me about Jacksonville."

"Everything is there in that report." She said and then paused, a knowing look upon her face. "You had naval friends didn't you?" He nodded. "You knew when you met the board of directors that internal situations were under my cont—command. I did as I saw fit to do. Eight percent of the human race is now infected commander. The aliens, any knowledge of them has to be concealed."

He had to agree although he now knew that an old friend and mentor had been destroyed because Donnelly had found out. Straker found it distasteful. It had become personal; although he now wondered how many other good men and women had their lives ruined because they had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. He voiced that opinion.

"What am I supposed to do? I despise that part of it but I look at the alternative and it isn't an acceptable one." He listened while she spoke. It all sounded so reasonable and yet so despicable.

Straker had journeyed in many lands, seen many things. Humans could be the worst thing ever and then again words like kindness and nobility existed only because humanity existed. Maybe the mob would rule but maybe not. He had a lot to think about. Straker nodded.

"I want the SHADO troops to see to it that no harm comes to any civilians." He knew that her plan was to guide the aliens into a selected spot but that almost certainly meant a landing near to innocents.

She huffed. "I've no wish to see anyone killed commander but SHADO's mission is to defeat the aliens."

"Perhaps there could be common ground. Maybe they lack the tools to just ask us for help." He saw her reaction to his assertion. For too long in the Middle East he had been told that the enemy was Islamic, prior to that the bad people were Russians. He had matured and come to understand that sometimes people just didn't ask the right questions. But he had never been and was not now becoming a dove. He told her that and emphasized how he wanted to communicate with them to know more about them.

"Of course," she answered. Foster was clearly dubious.

"Don't worry, as I said I'm not waving the white flag." John took a seat casually crossing his legs after setting he bade her to sit.

"Years ago I was part of a Seal team, not the real thing of course, just their driver." Straker recalled the mission and the men with whom he had served. "We were to hunt a big name terrorist in Iraq. The Seals were authorized to use any means. We entered this village prepared for the worst. You know what happened?" She shook her head.

"The Seal team leader spoke with a village elder, in the Iraqi's native tongue mind you. Turns out that the villagers were sick of the terrorists, they turned over our man without so much as a whimper. That, all because a man knew the language and how to talk to the people," he concluded.

"Commander, I understand your idealism. It was in your dossier. But Iraqis are human beings. We don't know what the aliens want. The virus takes over people or allows the aliens to act as puppeteers. What about the organ removals? Would you call that a friendly visit? And what of the alternate timeline's struggle with them? Your father—your alternate father if they could have, probably would have found a way to speak to them. They didn't."

He sighed and lit up a cigar, causing her nose to wrinkle. "Don't worry Marisol, the aliens will probably kill you before one of these do." He exhaled. "Ever wonder about all of this," he asked, gesturing with his free hand to his surroundings. "The same people colliding despite Bergman's change in the time line. How does that work?"

Foster shrugged. Had he been unmarried he would have been interested in her—unmarried and stupid he added to himself. He sensed a danger about her. Of course, one in her line of work had to be dangerous. She was determined, that much he knew. That was a good thing and yet as he expanded into his role he had begun questioning SHADO's civilian protocols. She leaned back in her chair showing her shapely breasts. Beside her right breast was her shoulder holster, a reminder to Straker that, like a leopard it was pretty but fast and lethal.

"Bergman told me that time is like a stream, a raging river really. He said that a rock might pop up and break the flow but that it meets back to the same path at some point. Of course it is all academic nonsense and admittedly he doesn't really know, but here we are." It all seemed so neat as she explained it.

"Bergman's findings mentioned an Alec, no last name. I wonder if and when he will show?" Straker realized that things had been altered and yet they were all here.

"Probably never," she answered. "We have our time to deal with commander."

"I agree." He got up and looked again at the chart. Straker hoped he arrived on the UFO's landing scene if for no other reason than to render her prediction wrong.

"Those two honeymooners won't come out of their cabin." Calvin Teague was the _Oklahoma's_ cook and auxiliary engineer. For container liners that wasn't an unusual thing. Teague could make repairs to the _Oklahoma's_ engines, interior systems and electrics but his pride came from his shrimp scampi. Calvin had liked cooking since his grandmother had showed him how to make gumbo, now 33 years ago for the 43 year old Teague.

Michael Sebastian blew some offensive smoke out of his mouth while nodding. Nearly 55 Sebastian was the _Oklahoma's_ first officer. Next year the company would award him his own command. Sebastian wasn't looking forward to that. He inhaled deeply the strong tobacco from his pipe. He nodded. The company took passengers in order to fill empty cabins and make a few extra dollars. Mostly the passengers were a seasoned lot that brought the crews much joy and many stories. Sebastian agreed that the two, one was some sort of has been actress, were strange.

"They show up to get a take away tray,' Teague fumed, "and that is it! No 'thank you chef" nothing!"

Sebastian bit the stem of his pipe. "It's a cheap ride to Singapore Cal but yes they are strange." The _Oklahoma's_ first officer shook his head. "I can't do anything about them. Anyway remember those couple swapping people? If that wasn't a good time, can't clap folks in arms because they won't speak though."

Teague shook his head. He looked up at the Pacific Ocean's lighted quilt of stars in the black sky, something that only sailors and airmen could see. He agreed with his first officer. He had sailed with Sebastian for almost fifteen years. And he was right: the situation with the strange passengers would resolve itself like many others had. He decided to change the subject.

"It'll be nice to see Singapore next week." He remarked while looking out at the night sky. The wind blew in their faces here just below the structure of the ship's bridge and living spaces. The hatch opened behind them. Leonard Guthrie, wearing his typical floral patterned Hawaiian shirt emerged from the fluorescent lighting of the crew spaces. He had a paper in his hands which meant company news, usually bad.

"I've already woke the skipper Mike, he kicked this down to you." He handed Sebastian the message. Sebastian took it, read it and groaned.

"You know those two problems we were discussing Cal?" he asked. Teague nodded. "The company advises us that US Homeland Security wants to speak to them. The _Reagan _will be sending over a chopper in a half day. The company isn't clear but I'm guessing that it's Homeland Security people. In the meantime we are to keep them under surveillance."

Teague chuckled. "Where are they going to go?"

It was at the moment that the thrum of the _Oklahoma's _engines stopped. The warning siren sounded. The men sprang into action with Teague being the first to undog the hatch. He stopped when his ears heard a strange whining over the ocean's noise. The hatch swung open. The very couple they had just been discussing emerged. Calvin reached out to stop the woman causing her to grab his arm. It was like a vise!

He looked in horror as the male swung his arm sending Sebastian flying after the wet sound of bone breaking. Teague screamed as that same sound came from his arm. A blinding light lanced out from a point in the darkness. _Oklahoma's_ midsection exploded sending whole cargo containers flying. The woman slammed Teague into the bridge superstructure's steel. Calvin saw white dots swimming before him. He saw through the illumination from the ship's emergency lighting the couple board and drop a lifeboat into the water. The whining increased; a second bolt cut the container ship in two. Teague saw an insane whirling object hovering over the ship. The thing exploded. A split second later a bat shaped aircraft flew through the sky where the thing had been. _Oklahoma's_ two halves slipped below the waves. Teague slid forward as the ship went vertical. He expelled his last breath before hitting the water.

Joshua Freeman thanked God that he still had defense force connections. He had talked a former commander of his into allowing him to board a Canadian C-130 and ride to Europe. The cover had been a human interest story in the exploits of the military. Morton Gilroy had agreed that those types of stories sold. That had earned Freeman time off from the entertainment section. He was following a lead.

Freeman was in the United Kingdom at Iver Heath, in Buchinghamshire, not far from London. He was adding up a very disturbing sum: a studio head who had been deeply involved in the US military, a woman whose credentials were many and varied and a virus that seemed very real. His last lead, a former soldier who was a company pharmacologist had led him here to Pinewood Labs. He found some homeless men, sometimes a valuable source of information in a camp near the company. His only information from his friend had been that many of the samples of which Ravi Sharma had spoke went to this place. Public information showed only a startup pharma corporation. That was probably all that it was.

Freeman introduced himself around the camp, a pocket full of expensive cigarettes and some 5 pound notes, something he winced at every handout. He had worked extra for Helen's landlord helping the man paint and drywall. He had extra money but cursed again his chosen profession for its pay. Maybe he should he just sell out and write un-researched, uninformed opinion pieces like many of his brethren. He was beginning to think he had been foolish until he found an old geezer named Franklin. Nearly 90 Franklin had been a Royal Marine stationed in Northern Ireland. Freeman thought that he was lucid and was probably relating something he believed.

"The lorries pulled off the road. That was when it was only Bobby Johnson, myself and Billie Legg here at this place. The coppers never bothered us back then." Franklin said.

"You are the mayor hereabouts Frankie!" One of the homeless men declared. That man was in his thirties. Freeman recognized the tattered remains of a British Army uniform. He wondered if he would find himself like this one day.

"Thank ya Ron but I'll settle to live here." Franklin laughed. "Now as I said the lorries stopped near here. I was woken and looking about when I saw a person hop out the back of one of those lorries. Now, I'd been in my share of ambulances going to the cracker ward but no attendant ever shot at me. That poor sod! Three of them shot him or her—I couldn't tell ya know."

"And these trucks were Pinewood vehicles?" Freeman asked.

Franklin nodded. "That lime green color of their lorries mate, I could see it. They were under the old sodium lamps that used to be here. They were ripped out, not long after what I saw."

"Did the police come? What happened?" he asked.

"Coppers came, took a look round. Some bloke from the labs came out and they went their ways. Wasn't long after that the Piney security guards tried beating the brush for us," he added. "I outsmarted them of course. You don't believe me mate. I can tell. But you're some kind of newsman. You go look. Something queer is going on at that place."

Freeman left not knowing what to believe. His gut told him that the old timer had been telling the truth—as far as he was concerned. Yet had that really happened? He had of course researched Pinewood to no avail. Of course no nefarious company would advertise their activities. Joshua would have to dig deeper. He bid Franklin a good day and then mounting a bike he had rented he pedaled toward Pinewood. It just so happened that they were in need of a public relations director, a job to which Freeman had applied and been granted an interview.

The trip to Pinewood had been uneventful, fun even. In Canada and America bikes were still largely ridden by kids and sport riders. The roads simply weren't friendly to adults wishing to ride. Here in England that was not so, Freeman had a safe trip where he could pedal and take in the sites. The guard at the gate questioned his passport but the job opening hadn't specified nationality. Canada was still a dominion of the crown if in name only. He was admitted with an escort, nothing unusual for any company. His escort, a plump short haired woman was a little less than friendly to his casual questions. He got from her that this was a very security minded company. He did find out that its main business was research into regenerating human tissue, as the company mission statement proclaimed. He picked up on Section G, a place where only the most trusted employees were allowed.

"Miss Foster told me as much," he lied, fishing around for a lead. He decided to cast as wide a net as possible. Foster was now connected to two events where people went berserk. Sharma had said that this mystery virus was in the body of that woman from the power plant. Did she have a connection here?

"Doctor Foster?" she asked in surprise. She eyed him with a look starting with fear and then changing to skepticism. "How do you know her?" Now his fishing had caught something.

"I met her after a party," he answered, near to the truth.

"Then you shouldn't have a problem here Mister Freeman," she answered. She had led him through a labyrinth of sterile white linoleum corridors to an office. Freeman noted that a security badge and code were needed for every entry point, high security indeed. So Agent Foster was a doctor, or else she was an agent pretending to be a doctor. "Mister Daugherty's assistant will take care of you. Please don't try and step away without an escort."

He nodded and allowed himself to be ushered into a small neat office. A large man in a neatly pressed shirt looked at him over a thick pair of glasses. Fortyish the man eyed him like something he had discovered on the heel of his shoe. He gestured for Josh to take a seat. "Mister Lightner will see you in a few minutes." The older man's voice was surprisingly pleasant. Josh allowed himself to relax only a little, job applicants should never be comfortable.

"Right, look we never expected a Canadian. You did read the rate of pay for this job, did you not?" He looked through and not at Josh.

"Yes I did. I thought that it would enrich me." It was nonsense but most job interviews were. "I've been a reported ever since returning from Afghanistan and I wanted a change."

"I see. Do you even have a flat here?" the man asked. Joshua was beginning to suspect that this man was Mister Lightner.

"I'll look. I have some money for that." Josh didn't really but he didn't intend on working here.

"Tell me about your PR expertise," the man told him.

Freeman launched into his readymade recitation of his alleged skills and abilities. Lightner listened intently because truth be told Freeman had done some public relations while he was with the CF. That had sparked his interest in journalism. To his amazement Lightner was actually paying attention and engaged. After some more questions he admitted who he was and offered Josh a tour of the laboratory. Freeman accepted. It was all on the level.

Pinewood's pursuit was dermal regeneration. Several sections were denied him during the tour but that might be suspicious in a badly written Science Fiction novel but not in real life. Pinewood would naturally guard against contamination. His research of the company revealed that they had indeed worked toward their goal. Many burn victims were spared a lifetime of ostracism because of their appearance precisely because of Pinewood's work. Nothing was out of the ordinary. This entire trip was looking to be a failure. He and Lightner meandered back to the office passing a janitor who stared intently at Freeman.

Lightner apologized for the charade once they had returned to his office. Freeman realized that he wasn't a bad sort, better than Morton Gilroy. He was kindly giving Freeman the old don't call us routine. Then to Freeman's surprise he asked him to return for orientation. Joshua was surprised. In another life he would be happy to accept such a job. Despite Lightner's declaration about the pay the job paid far more than he made at the _Defender_. He thanked the man and upon his original escort's entry shook Lightner's hand, a habit his father had passed onto him. Freeman promised to return; frustrated that he had learned nothing here. He had learned that the mysterious Foster had a connection here. He would research her and see if anything came up.

A different security person escorted him out of the building. A man this time he was fairly talkative with Josh but really said nothing of relevance. As they approached the main entrance Freeman saw two guards gathered around the janitor. There was agitated talk. It struck Freeman that the janitor looked more like a military man, straight, upright, mid fifties but still in shape, a head of black hair streaked with gray. The man shook his head and pushed past the private security, leaving a small bag behind. Freeman walked out soon afterwards.

He biked off toward where he his rented room was but stopped just a hundred meters from the homeless camp, Pinewood close behind him. He got out his camera and circled through the bushes. He was cautious. Patrols in Afghanistan had taught him that. Josh saw the janitor for just a split second before that man's fist landed squarely in the back of his neck.

"Four UFO's slowing to suborbital speed." SID's metallic British accent announced the impending attack as casually as an announcer might make a weather observation. Straker was pleased that SHADO technicians had rigged the early warning satellite with a communication system that bounced around different satellites. Johnny guessed that the aliens suspected the tracking system's existence.

"Looks like an approach that puts them over the North American continent," Foster declared. Her voice sounded mocking over his helmet. "Just your luck commander, if your pilots can force them down to one of our preplanned locations."

"Skydivers launch," he commanded, knowing his voice, digitized and coded was going out to certain of the Chinese submarines that lay along the UFO's corridor.

Straker rolled his aircraft along a course that would bring him perpendicular to the arriving invaders. He pushed up his land based Skydiver's engines to their maximum burn, just riding the hot line. The acceleration pushed him back in his seat. He looked at his fuel burn reconciling that against where he needed to be. It was going to be close.

He watched a piped down image of Skydiver's 2 and 16 firing carefully planned near misses at the UFO's. SID reported one enemy destroyed. Rail gun fire from a DDX destroyed a second ship. The UFO's were changing course, just as they should. SID reported that they would be over the United States along the eastern half of the country. A large target but already Foster reported that C-17's carrying Mobiles were winging toward the east. The UFO's were being led according to plan. Several more SHADO assets staged near misses causing the UFO's to alter course yet again.

"Alvina, Ohio commander," Foster informed him. Her Antonov aircraft was over Europe and it would be several hours after their engagement that she could arrive. "Do you know it?"

"Can't say that I do but our C-17's are inbound. Alien landing should be in ten minutes. I'm ordering the attack planes to stay tight but to back off enough to allow them down." He was cautious. Underestimating the enemy was a sure way to giving them the victory.

Straker looked down at America. Instruments had put the pilot's eyes in the cockpit to the point that many forgot over what they were flying. Whatever landmass this was man's home. He saw the lights from highways, cities and small towns. Somewhere down there they were luring aliens with a killer mission. He regretted that and hoped that the Mobiles would do their job. He checked his data screen and saw the cargo aircrafts' destination, a small field outside of Alvina. Straker angled for the same place. This was all coming together. He hoped that this would be the intelligence coup that they all hoped for.


	7. Chapter 7

"You look like a damn Nazi storm trooper Boston," Earl Cowan told Officer Stephan "Boston" Frey. Frey had left Alvina looking for a career in big city law enforcement, eventually winding up in Boston, Massachusetts. A bad murder scene had left him spooked. Seven years after leaving home Frey had accepted a job in his slow moving country home town.

Cowan owned a small gas station, convenience store, one of the few that had survived competition from the large chain quickie marts. He was tall and wore his seventy years with pride. Frey nodded. Alvina PD had accepted federal funds which, as part of the transfer from the taxpayers to his station, required that Alvina officers dress in a more modern fashion. Bloused boots and black uniforms Frey suspected intimidated rather than elicited respect from people. Yet this was what the federal government defined as modern. Frey paid for his sandwich and soda and thanked Earl. The lights flicked throughout the store.

"Looks like the town forgot to pay their electric bill." Cowan's remark was accented when the lights from the few local business' dimmed in tune with Cowan's store lighting. The lights went out. There was a high pitch whining outside while lights lit up the southern night sky. The whining lasted for almost two minutes.

"Central this is Frey," he spoke into his radio mic. Though assigned a number, Frey was one of only two officers on patrol tonight, the other being Mary Kettering. Under those circumstances numbers seemed stupid. The radio returned static.

"Those lights went down around Swanton Lake," Cowan remarked. "You going out there Boston?"

"I can't raise central." He had tried again and then tried contacting Kettering.

"I have a landline, "Cowan offered, pulling his phone out from under the counter.

Frey accepted the handset with thanks and quickly punched in the station's number. Carl Jefferson, a thirty-five year veteran of the small town force answered. Jefferson was younger than Cowan but Parkinson's had rendered the officer fit only for the post of dispatcher. Jefferson said that the lights and radio were out there at the station as well as the TV which was piped into the police station via satellite. This was something out of the ordinary for sure. Frey asked him about aircraft traffic around the popular Swanton Lake. Jefferson hadn't heard anything although at that time Frey heard hysterical voices over the phone line. People were in the station and they were afraid. Frey ensured that Jefferson took good notes and then handed the phone back to Cowan.

"I'd like to think those lights weren't connected to this outage but it is damn strange." Frey looked toward the direction of the lake. A pulsing light came from that direction.

"If you're going out there you want some company Boston?" Cowan asked him. He heard the pump from the store owner's shotgun. In Boston that would have caused him distress. Here in this small rural community it was comforting, Cowan was an icon here, not a street hoodlum.

"It's your risk buddy," he answered. Civilians riding along were a definite no in the cities. Out here it was sometimes handy.

"Probably some horse hockey from Wright-Pat. Remember when that drone crashed out near the Hoover place?" Frey nodded while waiting for Cowan to gather up some ammo. Head lights appeared on Route 7, coming away from the lake.

"Meet me out there!" Frey shouted as he ran out of the store. He pulled his flashlight out of his belt and aimed it at the oncoming car. It was careening dangerously. Frey stood safely off the side of the road as the car slowed. Cowan joined him.

"That's the Arutyunov boy's car, those Russians that moved in at Baker's apartments." Cowan remarked.

Frey recognized the hopped up, foreign built speedster that was slowing before him. The immigrant family's boys tinkered with cars much the way that Frey's dad had when Frey senior was a teen. Sure enough a boy leapt out of the driver's side, barely allowing the car to come to a stop. The boy was babbling in his native language. Frey had served the obligatory military time like most cops. So it was that he had seen fear and this boy was afraid. He ran toward the two men. Frey grabbed the youth and shook him.

"They came to the house!" he shouted after several minutes of coaxing. "They came to the house!" he repeated.

"Who came to the house?" Frey asked.

"They were, they were—I don't know what they were. My sister—my sister—they cut her open!" Frey looked at Cowan. The Russian was hysterical but they could see that was because of what he had seen. Frey calmed the boy further and told him to go into Alvina and inform Jefferson and ask for reinforcements. Given a mission the boy regained his composure. He got in his car, clearly in shock but with a purpose. Frey shouted at him to drive carefully as he and Cowan got into the police cruiser.

They roared down Route 7. The small group of three townhouses that made up Gale Baker's apartments was coming up fast. Those buildings lay between the lake and Cowan's gas station. If whatever happened at the Arutyunov was connected with those lights then the threat was moving fast. The townhouses came into view. A sense of fear came over Frey unlike any he had felt since Iraq or more recently that Boston apartment. He glanced over and seen Cowan shaking. He stopped short of the apartments.

"This is like combat!" he exclaimed. Frey threw the car's door open and took a deep breath. For just an instance it felt like the fear came from outside, not in him. Frey shook his head.

"You feel that?" Cowan asked. Frey knew that Cowan, a veteran of Vietnam was no stranger to combat and it effects. So he was not alone. Something was influencing them. Frey shook his head. Rational thought had saved him overseas and when he was in Boston. He used it to again save him. He advised Cowan to shake it off while seeing the red suited nightmare approaching them.

Cowan's shotgun lit up the night while Frey drew his .45. The fear shook off, Frey saw a man in a red hazmat suit. He was also aware as Cowan must have seen that the suited man had shot at them. The gun, Frey recognized the staccato sound of an automatic weapon, was oddly reflective, like it was silver plated. Both men fired back. The red suited figure was impacted but didn't stop coming. Frey's doors rattled from more rounds. He saw another of the red suited men, dragging a person behind him while firing at Frey and Cowan. In his headlights he saw another hazmat suited figure bend over and…slice into a person on the ground. The first figure jerked.

"Hit his helmet Boston!" Cowan bellowed while reloading.

Frey who was kneeling behind the cruiser's door took air and did just that. Even the helmet was impervious to his pistol fire but the attacker was slowing down. The third round from Frey's .45 caused him to drop his gun and grab his helmet as if to block his ears. Two more shots, the faceplate cracked discharging something dark. Hazmat One as Frey had dubbed him fell back, arms flailing. Cowan who had switched to rifled slugs managed to slow a second apparition causing the man or woman to grab at his or her helmet. Frey was beginning to believe that these were terrorists of some kind. Whatever they were they were about to kill him and the storekeeper.

"Let's get into town and get more help!" he snapped to Cowan. The older man wasted no time getting back into the police car while Frey laid down covering fire. Returning machine gun fire removed the car's windshield. He knew they had to get out of here before the terrorists shot either the cruiser's tires or radiator. He jumped, threw the transmission into reverse and accelerated back.

Frey cocked the wheel hard and turned the car around simultaneously putting it into drive. Glass flew into the car as the rear windshield exploded. Both men kept their heads down. Frey pushed the car past 100 back toward the sanctuary of Alvina. They needed firepower. Were these people some kind of bio terrorists putting something into the lake? That made no sense since Swanton Lake was a swimming and fishing hole, not a source of drinking water. He was glad to be home. In Boston he could never trust the locals but here he could and now he needed that help more than ever.

"Drink it, it's water. I gave you sodium pentothal, your mouth will be dry." The janitor had Joshua Freeman's hands cuffed securely behind his back. And further chained to the chair in which he found himself. He took a swig while the man held the bottle to his lips.

"Why?" he croaked the single word after swallowing the water.

The man turned a chair, backrest to him and straddled it facing him. "Because you might have been SHADO, Marisol Foster is a dangerous and devious woman. Chances are fatal with her." His accent identified him as American.

"What's shadow?" he asked. He nodded after the janitor put the bottle out again.

"S-H-A-D-O, SHADO," his host replied. "That's going to take some explaining. I recovered your recorder and notes. You are curious about the dormant virus. So was and am I." The man sighed. "My name is John Koenig. Up until 6 months ago I was a researcher doing work with organic circuitry and nanotech tools."

Freeman surveyed a dirty room with a single smelly mattress on the floor, a camp stove and small refrigerator finished off his prison. Koenig eyed him, seeming to read his mood and mind. His warden offered him another drink which Josh greedily accepted.

"I'm not a pervert or serial killer Mister Freeman. We are on the track of the same thing." Koenig rose and moving behind Josh undid his handcuffs. "I'm betting that you'll listen to me." Josh felt feeling return to his hands. "You know that you are the first person I ever knocked out. My father was career navy but I never served a day in my life. Dad made sure though that I knew Karate and Judo. It didn't help me when they took Yvette." Koenig returned to the chair facing Freeman.

"They?" he asked.

"SHADO," he replied. "The virus is…special. It's not…from here. But Foster and her handlers want it." Koenig's answers told Josh that the stranger was sitting on a good bit more information and was not ready to reveal it to him…yet.

"Can you get us to Eastern Europe?" Koenig asked.

"Us?" he asked.

Koenig nodded. The man got up and returned with a piece of red rubber. Taking out a knife which alarmed Josh he smiled and cut the rubber. The rubber immediately sealed up behind where the knife was scoring it. Freeman had seen trickery before. Koenig seemed to sense that and again rising he returned with a silvery band. He held it before Joshua while running his finger around the inside. Freeman tensed up as he had when he had first been under fire in Afghanistan. The fear was primal, like the first nightmare that children experience. Josh's breath's came in great heaves. He was stamping his feet and stood up ready to run. Koenig seized him in a hug while showing him the bracelet.

"It generates a sense of fear as you just felt." Koenig eased him up making sure that he was steady. Freeman watched his hands, this time seeing the band's small activation switch. The fear hit him again but shorter this time as Freeman realized it came from that device.

"What does that?" he asked, his breath slowing to gasps.

Koenig shrugged. "The brain is partially electric. We have made some strides in this area, being able to suppress some neural electrical activity while stimulating other activity. How about a partnership? I've been on this ever since Yvette was taken. But I'm a scientist. I'm damn lucky to have made it this far." He turned fierce blue eyes onto Freeman. "You could help me. Your friend Sharma, bet he knows of Igor Dostevsky."

"Who is Dostevsky." He asked while angry that this Koenig had really gone through his notes.

"An expert in neural viruses specifically geared toward changing the mental processes of a person." Koenig's answer was a flat declaration.

"Mind control?" he asked his mouth open. Koenig nodded.

"He is hiding in Croatia. You have some ties from your military tour. Look this mission impossible is impossible because I can't find out much on a cleaner's salary. You could help me get to Dostevsky." Koenig looked hard at him.

"If he has information on mind control—I'm assuming that people in the government are seeking this then why doesn't he simply go to the New York Times or CNN?" Josh was wondering if Koenig was another conspiracy nut.

"He has the cure Mister Freeman." Koenig looked around. "This is a hideaway, not my flat. If you don't believe me and want to help me I'll blindfold you and lead you out of here." He turned away from Josh, intentionally putting his back to him.

This would mean his job at the _Defender_. Freeman hoped that he could sell his story to a major news magazine. For there was a story here he realized. This was journalism. It might lead to his ruin but he had to know.

"No need, let's work on going to Croatia," he said.

"UFO landing site is dead ahead commander." Chief Kano McGhee pointed to the HUD display on the Mobile's dashboard. They had been on the ground for almost an hour. Straker rocked back in his seat.

Built on the chassis of a Bradley fighting vehicle the mobiles were reinforced with the new reflective armor. The first bolt made him thankful that the armor worked. The mobile's infrared scanner returned an image of one of the two UFO's. There was movement on the night vision scope, alien personnel. Kano asked for orders. Straker ordered them to fire. He felt the mobile's main weapon fire through his chair. The shell had no explosive power but emitted an intense blast of noise. Straker saw figures drop. The UFO clearly defined by the scanner, fired again. Straker looked in alarm as one of his mobiles blew up. The reflective armor helped but couldn't divert all of the alien weapon's energy.

The three surviving mobiles along with two others from another aircraft closed on the UFO's. Straker ordered them to lay down a pattern of the noise producing warheads. It was theorized that the intense vibrations produced by the sound would cause the liquid breathing aliens enough stress that they would shut down. The night vision presentation showed him that indeed, two aliens had collapsed. A beam lanced out at destroying yet another mobile. Straker ordered a high speed high explosive round directed at that UFO. It exploded. At least the second UFO was between them and the one that had just been destroyed. The collapsed aliens were protected from the blast.

The surviving ship started to glow. Straker was privy to enough intelligence to let him know that the craft was getting ready for an escape. He gave his last order. He felt his mobile eject its primary weapon. The front windscreen darkened. The night lit up like day, the result of the small electromagnetic pulse weapon. The mobiles followed up with several smaller charges, antiaircraft fire really, fifty caliber rounds. The UFO rose up a full hundred feet. Straker felt rather than heard the UFO's telltale sound. He also noticed that the ship was wobbling. It was slowly another fifty feet and then fell back to earth, its glow and apparent spinning gone. The mobiles closed.

"Send out the ground troops Kano," Straker ordered while unbuckling his straps. He crawled through the mobile and exited out of the back hatch. His forces were moving quickly, medical personnel being screened by seasoned assault troops from several nations.

Two of the medics stopped near to an alien and carefully aiming a rifle at one shot the being with a tranquilizer dart. The other, with the help of one of the soldiers unfolded a metal net and running the final distance threw the net over the alien. Its special alloys and miniaturized circuitry it was hoped would defeat signals thought to travel from the alien ships to their crewmen. Other SHADO personnel approached the second downed alien. Straker saw the ship's beam emitter light. He shouted a warning while diving for the ground. The alien weapon seared the air finding Straker's mobile. Kano had smartly turned away so that only a track was vaporized. The loud zipper like sound of the mobiles' main guns filled the night.

Straker rose, a scowl on his face. The UFO was illuminated and rising unsteadily. Gases were leaking out of rents in the hull. His people tried securing the second alien only to see the thing throw off its helmet. The red suited body exploded. Straker advised his troops to head for their mobiles. He helped the medical team drag their catch along to one of the tracked vehicles. He leaped in when the alien was safely inside. The UFO climbed skywards. Straker dogged the hatch just before a second EMP device detonated. There would have to be a massive cover story for tonight's activities. The mobile sped backwards. They were all jarred; no doubt the UFO had exploded. He looked at the body they had dragged in, alive hopefully.

"Damnit! Those are just machine guns but they are tearing us up!" Boston Frey bellowed.

Earl Cowan nodded, breathing heavily. Frey thought it just as likely that he would lose his partner from congestive heart failure before the alien gunfire did Cowan any harm. Chrystal Boone pointed at where an alien crossed an alley near to Alvina's new corporate owned hardware store. Boone's father, sixty miles away at his job had left the 15 year old home with her sister. Officer Mary Kettering had died, cut open by aliens while trying to shepherd Chrystal and her sister Kate to the police station, so far Alvina's only safe haven. It turned out that Chrystal's father had taken his eldest daughter hunting and she was a good shot. She drew a bead, striking the thing's suit.

It bounced off although some of the rifled slugs from Earl's shotgun had hurt them. Aliens they were. Frey would have thought terrorists before that spinning ship had landed. They had moved quickly and quietly from the lake. Somehow they were generating fear to freeze their victims in terror and then came organ extraction. Frey had seen Kettering cut open by a laser, her heart, still beating, taken from her chest and put into a silver metallic container. He couldn't hit its helmet to stop it. They were in fact losing. Frey had a few .45 clips and rifle cartridges on his bandolier, Cowan was low and Boone had one more clip for her AR-15, not good he knew.

"They are having that sale on propane tanks at the hardware store, aren't they Earl?" he asked Cowan.

The storekeeper was recovered. He nodded, and taking aim on Frey's gesture, opened fire on the hardware store's front window. Alien machine fire rattled the door of the pickup truck behind which they hid. Chrystal returned fire toward the alien suppressing their fire. The front of the hardware store exploded throwing one of the aliens, suit burning out into the street. The second alien ran firing toward them. "Out", was what Earl Cowan announced, Chrystal Boone said the same, Frey discarding his rifle fired the last shots from his .45. They were finished. The alien seemed to have an unlimited magazine.

The red suited alien jerked. Its face plate shattered. Frey turned to see Carl Jefferson, trembling and staggering into the alien's path. The officer, despite his Parkinson's was firing away with the force's antique but functional Thompson machine gun. Frey heard the whirling from the alien's ship. They were leaving. Then he heard the zipper like sound of a mini gun. He had heard such things in war. The alien collapsed fluid gushing from its shattered helmet. Boone pointed at the sky. The strange teepee shaped craft floated overhead while being sprayed with fifty caliber antiaircraft fire. It lifted skyward despite that and then exploded. Frey heard an aircraft, human he guessed streaking overhead. Everywhere it fell silent as in battles he had been in, save for the sound of flames greedily licking whatever wood it could. He saw the lights from the tracked vehicles before he heard them.

"Things don't look good Boston," Cowan informed him. They trio stood up, the alien threat looking to be concluded. But the clearly manmade vehicles rolling up Main Street signaled a new danger. Frey stepped out while signaling to his unlikely partners to remain hidden. He raised his weapon as the armored vehicle's lights drowned his form.

They were odd. Slightly like the mine resistant vehicles that he had driven around in the Middle East except that they were shiny. One of the armored trucks silver armor was burned. Frey guessed that the burns were gotten in some of those flashes that had lit up Ohio 7. The lead car rolled to a stop. The back hatch opened, Frey could hear that. He took a deep breath as a man emerged from the darkness, a silhouette that turned into a lean blonde haired middle aged man. The man smoked a thin cigar while casually regarding the scenery before him.

"Not something you see everyday officer…" the man's gaze fell upon Frey.

"Stephen Frey, may I ask your name?" he replied, not really expecting an answer.

"Your friends can step out. We aren't going to kill you for what you've seen tonight." The man approached Frey and laid a hand on his shoulder. "We're going to clean up." The man said. Frey saw his nondescript flightsuit bearing a patch portraying a man with a flashlight…SHADO? What was that? "It's Straker Officer Frey. I can't say more. You can never say anything."

"How in the hell explain this you damned spook?" Earl Cowan spat.

"An exploding tanker truck, industrial accident, violent teens, you name it, I can come up with it. Homeland Security will see that you receive money to rebuild." Straker sighed. Frey thought that he was having some kind of inner dilemma.

"You knew," he said and then repeated it. Straker nodded sadly while puffing on his cigar. "We could have been ready! We…we might have been able to fight them if we knew about them! You knew!"

"What?" asked a confused Chrystal. "You knew and let this happen? How could they know?" the girl asked Frey and Cowan.

"All these machines here this fast, this was a trap—for them?" Cowan nodded at the burnt alien cadaver which was being taken up by SHADO personnel.

"We're fighting a battle here sir." Straker's penetrating blue eyes, though not on Frey, were compelling to say the least.

"What if we go public?" Frey shot back.

"What happens is what happens to every crackpot and nutcase, officer. Please, take the money. Let us clean up around here. What happened here could be repeated worldwide. You wouldn't want that would you?" Straker was sincere yet sad thought Frey.

He caught site of Carl Jefferson's bullet riddled corpse. These people could hide that? Frey was furious but had faced spooks before. No one could explain those blasts that had lit up Alvina unless they had power. Tears were running down his eyes. "Damn you Straker!"

"My older brother died down there," Josh Freeman told John Koenig. The Canadian C-130 lumbered toward a landing. Relegated to dropping relief supplies the Canadian aircrew gave them a ride after Freeman had called in a favor to have he and his new companion designated as relief workers for the Balkans. He hadn't thought of Al Junior in many months. His older brother shared their mother's slim physique and yet had been Joshua's protector.

"He was doing what we are pretending to do," Freeman offered in way of explanation. His brother, graduated from medical school had wanted to do field work in the Balkans. His aircraft, not the victim of maliciousness but of bad weather had crashed after a sudden snow storm had iced over the aircraft's wings. He related the story of his brother's crash to Koenig.

"That's a shame," his new companion said. "So much good is wasted in the world, all for things that people could take care of themselves." Koenig bulled him away from the small round window. "It looks cold down there."

Freeman agreed. The loadmaster ordered them to buckle up. The C-130 was soon behind the men as they rode away in a small taxi. They had the driver deposit them near to a rental agency where they got a rickety old Euro car that was clearly on its last legs. Freeman saw rust on the engine block. Nonetheless this was the dealer's best car. The two men were soon on their way into the Croatian countryside. Koenig drove.

"So Dostevsky told you where he is?" Josh asked. This seemed very simple, too simple.

"We worked together, telecons and internet conferencing. Eventually he came to America and I was shown more of what he was working on. It was there that I found out that it was a cry for help. We met casually. I took him home for dinner with Yvette and me." Koenig's voice became laden with sadness. "We went into my work shop, turned on some power tools. Foster keeps ears everywhere. I didn't know that then. Igor told me what we were dealing with. Those toys I showed you back at the shack, he gave them to me."

"What is it that you were dealing with?" Freeman asked. He had to admit that fear device was highly advanced, just the sort of thing that government agencies would like to control the population he thought.

Koenig shot him a glance. "You'll see."

Freeman offered to drive but Koenig declined stating that he knew where he was going. Josh took the time to grab some sleep. He wasn't sure about Koenig but he was committed now. Anyway if the man had wanted to kill him then that would be done and he wouldn't be here. He realized that hours had passed. Koenig was pulling off onto a dirt road. The car's single headlight, only one worked, showed cloaked figures ahead of them. Freeman shook off sleep and the uncomfortable ride. Koenig braked causing a loud squeal from the car's last millimeter of brake pad and metal. He nodded at Josh. They got out of the car.

"Igor!" his new friend shouted. Freeman watched the cloaked and hooded strangers seemingly aimless in movement quietly surround them. He caught sight of a dark face beneath a hood. A voice answered Koenig's.

"You come at last John! I knew that you were a good man!" The voice became a figure emerging from the darkness. Freeman made out the silhouette of a building behind the person who he guessed was Igor Dostevsky. The person stopped, clearly eyeing him. "You bring a stranger."

"I needed him to get here my friend." That sounded like his usefulness had come to an end Freeman guessed. "He is seeking answers. I wouldn't lead any of Foster's people here Igor." Koenig's statement carried some weight he guessed for Dostevsky seemed to relax. Koenig introduced Freeman to the scientist.

Sixtyish, round, bearded and bald was how Josh would describe the scientist. He wore a white shirt and jeans, much different from his cloaked followers. For these people were Dostoevsky's subjects, Freeman could sense that. The scientist seemed to accept that. He came up and hugged Koenig and then took Josh's hand.

"Does he know what awaits, John?" the older man asked.

"I'm holding back the best part." Koenig spoke while following the older man. The cloaked figures accompanied them. Freeman soon himself inside a dilapidated yet clean and warm house, Dostevsky closed the door behind him. They were in a room with a large fireplace. A homey looking rug lay in front of the blaze while the room contained furniture that looked rickety at best.

"Sit down," Dostevsky said. "The furniture won't kill you Mister Freeman."

Freeman sat, he was apprehensive but not about his companions. He sensed that he was onto something. One of the cloaked figures came in and helped Dostevsky make some tea and then serve it. It wasn't Freeman's drink of choice, especially this strong Turkish blend but it was welcomed. They had tea and some tasteless little cakes after which the older man lit a revolting smelling pipe.

"Something you wanted to tell me Igor?" Koenig asked their host while nodding toward one of the cloaked people.

"Those samples I sent to you at Dayton. Where did you think they came from?" the scientist asked Koenig.

"It was my understanding that none of them had ever been captured." Koenig answered.

"I withheld information my friend." Dostevsky sighed. "You were a contractor. You were never supposed to get this close. I still don't understand how you made it into Pinewood. Foster…Foster must not have expected you to come this far. We have had almost twenty…" he stopped and shot a sharp glance at Joshua. "Twenty subjects captured. They are my entourage. I couldn't stand to see them tortured at Pinewood."

"They were onto another capture!" Koenig exclaimed. Josh could read his dismay. "Janitors pick things up and I knew they expected something big at Pinewood. SHADO picked up somebody new in the power structure Igor. I heard the name Straker."

Josh's mouth dropped open as did that of the old man. "Straker from the movie studio?" he asked.

"Movie studio?" asked Dostevsky. "Straker was the head of Facility 44."

They compared notes. Freeman discovered that a Straker had headed an organization that had predated SHADO. Yet it couldn't be the same person. He told them about the movie mogul. Both men were skeptical. Yet it seemed like more than a mere coincidence. Freeman told them how his Straker was odd in that he was a retired US Naval officer, hardly movie studio material. Koenig stood up and stretched while approaching one of Dostoevsky's cloaked people. They even wore gloves Freeman noted.

"A movie studio?" asked Koenig. Just then he ripped back the mysterious person's hood.

"Christ!" Freeman bellowed. Delicate features indicated that he was probably looking at a woman, a woman whose face was green. Not mildly green as it being sick but the color of broccoli. "What kind of crap is this?" he asked, angrily. He had been roped into some kind of foolishness he sensed.

"Her skin color was altered because she has spent considerable time being immersed in a breathing liquid that is green." Dostevsky held up beaker. "Come Mister Freeman you may partake. Miko," he spoke to the green girl. "Please show Mister Freeman our apparatus. Breathing liquid is nothing incredible Mister Freeman."

"Im—Immersed, for how long?" he asked while he watched the girl come forward with a breath mask hooked to a small canister.

"Awhile," he replied. "Foster and Straker were interested in these people. They are unique in other ways." He nodded at the green skinned oriental woman. "Miko, why don't you show us how you can microwave a meal," he asked the woman. Foster saw her blank look as she retrieved a frozen meal from a refrigerator that had ceased being modern in the late 50's.

Dostevsky bade him touch the boxed dinner. The meal was indeed cold to the touch. Miko took it back from him and laid it onto a countertop. Joshua watched as she ran her hand over the dinner, watched the box smoke and then suddenly burst into flame. He stepped back, baffled and shocked. Koenig stepped in and put out the fire after Dostevsky warned Miko to stop. The dinner reeked and Freeman guessed that it was supposed to smell that way.

"It's no parlor trick." Koenig was clearly excited. "Igor, this was some of the samples! Human manipulation of EM radiation! They've done it!" Joshua watched as his mood changed. "Foster lied about capturing samples."

"They've captured many my friend. I couldn't tell you. They want the virus to control people. They," Dostevsky glanced at him. "They are worried less about the outsiders than that." Freeman heard outsiders as a code word, but code for what he knew not.

"You two are hiding something," Josh concluded. "Okay, tell me your version of things and we will go from here." He eyed the green skinned Miko wondering just how far this story would go.

Another of the cloaked people stopped in mid step and moaned. "It is alright Dylan," the old man told him. "Dylan has the ability to…link with the outsiders or at least detect when they are near. Tonight we sleep yet my study of Dylan shows that an outsider presence may be near. We go tomorrow."

Freeman yawned. "Why not come clean about whatever the rest of this is?" he asked his hosts.

Koenig sat down and faced him, piercing blue eyes locked onto Freeman's. "I needed your help in getting here and to expose this. Unless you are so convinced that you take time to try and convince us of what we already know then bring you here was all for nothing. The wrist band, Miko's display, I'm sure you think it was all a trick or could convince yourself of that. We need you to be one hundred percent."

Freeman glanced away. Koenig might be sincerer or sincerely crazy, which one he did not know. These two men were convinced about something. There was indeed the wrist band and the thirty second meal deal lady. Both could be tricks and a cynic such as Freeman looked for trickery everywhere. Maybe that was the key to real journalism, cynicism. Anyway the name Straker was a lead that much he would come away from this with. He decided to tag along

*******************************************************.

"That's Marcia Carlson," Craig Rothstein told his friend and coworker Kerry Reynolds.

Reynolds laughed and swallowed some more of his sixteen dollar vodka tonic. "What that lady is, is an over aged woman who doesn't belong here. But hey, don't let me get in your way pal."

Reynolds was married, in his early thirties and chasing two children. Rothstein was in his late twenties and still waiting for the magazine model to show up. Craig liked his fellow newsman and hated him all at the same time. He eyed the older woman who was looking back at him. He remembered her from some stupid movie about bugs. Reynolds tapped his shoulder and nodded at the woman. They were in the Singapore Hilton lounge, a huge carpeted affair about three quarters of a football field in size. Pretty waitresses in long red dresses served them. The woman that he assumed was a has been actress sat three tables away with a dour looking man. She got up.

"You two look lonely," she said as she seated herself between the men at their table. Rothstein looked past her to her male friend. "He is nothing," she explained. She sat without being invited. Rothstein saw Reynolds' grin. This woman was coming on way too strong as she touched Rothstein as if she'd known him for some time. Reynolds was willing to indulge to see his friend get what he wanted. Personally the liquor hadn't hit him that hard so that he saw a middle aged woman whose youthful beauty had long since vanished trying to look like she had perhaps ten years earlier.

"Are you Marcia Carlson?" Craig asked. The woman nodded. Kerry shook his head. Carlson ordered them another round of drinks. Her male companion seemed fixated upon them. That struck Reynolds as strange and disturbing. But as a newsman for one of the planet's top networks strange and disturbing was sometimes welcome. Usually he reported on candy coated stories of political successes. Why bother to dig, no one asked questions anymore.

He woke up sometime later. Reynolds was naked and not for the reasons usually associated with that. They were in a hotel room: he couldn't say if it was his or Rothstein's. The woman stood over him, her partner over Rothstein. Her hand went over his face. At first he felt nothing and then it was a sucking. Kerry thought about his wife and children as his mind was pulled away. He wanted to scream and somehow thought that he did. It was some consolation as he died.

Marcia Carlson looked down at her shell. It had gotten the two this far. Larry Parker stood over his empty husk. They each took a moment to collect their thoughts and then Marcia went hunting. She found the maid's cart abandoned in the hallway while doubtless its attendant was on a break. There was something: several cans of spray cleaner and even a can of spray oil. She brought them back to the room, found the microwave, nodded at Parker-Rothstein and put the cans inside. She set the timer and then turned on the power switch. Rothstein-Parker had run his hand over the room's draperies and they were now aflame. They both left, media credentials and plane tickets to Diego Garcia in hand. The explosion rocked them as their elevator neared the bottom floor.

The new moon suits were far less bulky than the original NASA Apollo jobs thought Johnny Straker. He had gotten the opportunity to train in one during his short tenure as an astronaut. Now he supposed that he could come and go to the future moon base—if successful. He applied slight pressure to _Prometheus_' joystick. Hundreds of thousands of microcircuits, tens of thousands electrical and hydraulic controls and it was all controlled by one piece of plastic. His hand moved effortlessly in the new suit. A voice came over his helmet asking him if all was well. He replied in the affirmative and winded down mentally.

The lunar flight's simulator was located in London, a concession to England's contribution to the mission. Straker had read and endorsed an idea that had originally located SHADO here in the UK. But government and labor laws meant a long wait time for a new movie studio. It was time that they didn't have. Fortunately Pinewood Laboratories, their surrogate here in Europe, was located nearby. Although technically Marisol Foster's command, Straker had at least on paper, some authority there. He wanted to see it. He wanted to see their prisoner.

A technician loosened his restraints. He climbed out of the simulator and headed for debriefing. Four hours later he was checking into the lab and a pleasant drive through the English countryside. The place smelled like a hospital. Foster met him and gave him the tour. Actually the facility was profitable as a supplier of regenerated tissue for burn victims. He was pleased about that as it hid budget problems as concerned SHADO and their share of taxpayer dollars from supporting countries. They were soon in the secure section. Foster guided him to a window beyond which lay the alien.

"Human surrogate sir," Foster told him. "He was a citizen of Yemen, thought to be a terrorist—a real terrorist, not one of our convenient excuses." He watched while the technicians, wearing protective gear, took the man's readings. Another tech, forceps in hand removed lenses that had covered the invader's eye. Straker inwardly winced at that.

"They protect his eyes and allow him to see through the solution." Foster looked at her patient while reciting data from memory to him. "Bruises suggest that he was subjected to high acceleration. Professor Bergman says this means that either the aliens don't have artificial gravity or that it if they do it is only partially effective. No walking around in their spaceships at any rate.

"Can we talk to him—them?" he asked.

"Your father's guests were unique, programmed to deal with the human race on a personal basis. I believe that these crewmen are simpler, harvesters if you will." Foster looked at him. "But there should be some kind of alien presence in there. We shall see."

She explained that they had inserted electrodes into their captive's brain and spinal cord as well as keeping him on drugs. Any suicidal instinct should be suppressed she explained. She invited him to interrogate the alien. They suited up in bio-suits and entered the room. Straker had brought an interpreter of Farsi along just in case there was some remains of the man's mind in there. They started with standard questions of any prisoner of war. What was his name and rank if any, and where had he come from. There was no answer. They inquired about his father, mother, wife and children, still there was no response.

"Clean up after dinner," Straker instructed the interpreter. The man gave him a puzzled look. "Family time, you are home, dinner is over and you are cleaning up, getting ready for the evening."

The speaker realized what Straker wanted. He started speaking, short, sentences that conveyed warmth instead of cold questions. He pursued this line for several minutes. Johnny heard Foster moan. "This is bloody stupid. I'll fetch my staff to dissect this thing and see what kind of responses we get."

The human alien hybrid shouted. Straker recognized mother. The interpreter spoke over him. "They were in the desert for a barbecue. Father was gathering up the plates. Mother was helping his sister. Then a strange sound and then lights. Who are they?" This last was clearly hysterical.

"Ask them why they are here," Foster hissed. The man did as he was told. There was continued babbling and then a change that caused shivers to run down Straker's back.

"We have come for you, all of you. We need you and we will harvest you." The voices seemed more mechanical than man. "You cannot solve what we are and defeat us. That is beyond you."

"What about some form of peaceful coexistence," Straker countered

"Even some cooperation on our part," Foster added. He knew of no such offer from SHADO's board of directors. Straker believed that cooperation, he felt the sting from the Ohio cop, was unacceptable. Medical and humanitarian help yes, human sacrifice was out he believed.

The human alien looked almost serene and then started convulsing. Foster called for assistance. Straker backed up hastily, glad that he had the biosuit on as the man's skin erupted. Blood spattered his helmet and suit. The wildly moving alien started smoking. An alarm sounded. Johnny watched in horror as the former human's hair burst into flames. The staff ushered them out of the room.

"We sacrificed those people in that town for that?" It was a question but Straker roared it. Out here in the tiled antiseptic observation room all that had just happened seemed unreal and antagonizing at the same time. He seized her shoulders causing her to shrug him off and back away.

"The body had been injected with one of our first attempts at nanoprobes, radioactive dies as well." We will learn what happens inside of a human body that is controlled by the aliens. His brain was also swimming in a radioactive solution that will allow me to map electrical responses and the brain areas infected. Commander—Straker we will learn how the alien's control their hosts…possibly. That is a step away from curing the virus. Those lives may buy millions of lives sir."

"Perhaps," he conceded. But he was really remembering the Ohio cop's words: if only they had been told, if only they could have prepared. Maybe there wasn't a cure for the virus. Maybe the answer lie in man's inherit goodness and strength. Straker was curious about this place.

According to Miss Foster this was their first alien capture besides that first encounter. Those humans had been unique in that they had been programmed, so it was thought, to interact with humans. Yet this place, Pinewood, seemed equipped as if this wasn't the first time. He wasn't an exobiologist nor was he an auto mechanic. But he realized when he was being sold a lemon. Pinewood wasn't a lemon but it had questions with it.


End file.
